TSF Showcase – Q1 2024 Compilation

Post published:04/01/2024
Post category:TSF Showcase
Reading time:180 mins read
Post comments:9 Comments

A compilation of TSF Showcases released on Natalie.TF from January to March 2024!

TSF Showcase is a recurring segment where I discuss and platform a TSF work as part of my weekly Natalie.TF Rundowns. This segment is meant to highlight a wide spectrum of TSF materials I encountered throughout my travels and works recommended by Natalie.TF readers. These showcases are evergreen writings buried in a topical post, so I like to compile them into these digest posts for easy reading.

TSF Showcases are not meant to highlight the best TSF materials, but rather anything that I came across and found interesting or otherwise noteworthy. Meaning while there are some high quality works featured here, there are also more than a few oddities, relics, and miscellaneous monstrosities.

This post collects 13 segments originally published throughout the first quarter of 2024. These segments were left largely unchanged from when they were originally published.

For those who don’t know what TSF is… first off, how did you get here? And second off, I would recommend checking out my 2022 article, Natalie Rambles About TSF, where I define TSF as the following:

“TSF is a genre of fiction wherein a character undergoes a change in sex through fictitious or fantastical means. With the ensuing narrative, assuming there is one beyond the initial transformation, following how they adapt to these changes. [The name] TSF is an abbreviation of Trans-Sexual Fiction or Trans-Sexual Fantasy, and the term has several different variants. This includes TG, Gender Bender, Gender Swap and so forth.”
Natalie Neumann, Natalie Rambles About TSF

I covered some absolute bangers this quarter, so let’s get it on and dive in!

TSF Showcase 2024-01
Osananajimi wa Onnanoko ni Naare [My Childhood Friend MUST Become a Girl!] by Morishita Mao

Let’s start off this year with another recommendation from a Natalie.TF reader, and a reminder that I am open to recommendations, so please leave them in the bit down below.

Osananajimi wa Onnanoko ni Naare is a three volume series published from 2013 to 2015 and created by Morishita Mao. A mildly prolific TSF creator who was making works dating back to 2002, but their big claim to fame was this story. Honestly, just going through their old unsecured Japanese-as-heck website makes me feel as if I should be doing some sort of creator retrospective on them. But one, I did not choose the life route where I learned Japanese. And two, Morishita Mao has gotten into some weird naked child girl isekai bullshit nowadays. I know that TSF might be too niche to pay the bills, but still…

Anyway, this comic opens with high schooler Shuuichi Osakabe saving a chibi fairy by the name of Sylphie from drowning. Operating on fairy tale logic, Shuuihi gets a wish for saving a magical critter and he wants a female childhood friend. Except Sylphie cannot conjure people into existence— she’s just a fairy after all— so instead she ka-girls Shuuichi’s male childhood friend, Iori Osanai. However, even something like that is too much of an ask for Sylphie, as Iori can resist her spell by affirming their masculinity. Which basically amounts to Iori saying “I’m a guy” while not thinking about how cute their girl form is.

This represents the main push and pull for the comedy antics of Osananajimi wa Onnanoko ni Naare. Iori tries to remain male throughout their daily school life. Sylphie keeps popping up when they have “a chink in [their] armor” to give them a fresh ka-girling. And Iori needs to deal with the consequences of a spontaneous transformation. While everybody in their class knows about the transformation, Iori doesn’t want the wider world or their inexplicably single housewife mother to know about this curse. This leads to the creation of an alter ego, Shiori Yamauchi, and the introduction of some dual identity shenanigans. Though, it’s a far cry from anything seen in Ramna ½ or Ame Nochi Hare, in part due to the nature of Osananajimi.

The comic is broken up into 41 chapters but (aside from the first two) every chapter is only eight pages long, not counting the chapter end gag panel or the chapter introduction page. This limitation forces Morishita to deliver the story at a rapid pace, not only making sure that something happens every chapter, but every page. The comic always feels like it is building to something, never spinning its wheels, and the inclusion of multi-part chapters allow the series to tackle more long-form storylines. Like when Iori inevitably gets ‘stuck’ in their girl form. Or the climax where Sylphie’s mom shows up.

Okay, so what does Osananajimi have to offer in terms of content? Well, it is more interested in silly anime-school-style shenanigans than anything else, using light non-ecchi fan service as its go-to gag, and sprinkling in supplementary characters for more diverse situations. Such as the pining female love interest Miyu Yanase, the jealous teacher Sumire-sensei, or Saito, a middle schooler who develops a crush on Shiori. For what it is, I found it to be a good, comfortable, and overall fun time that put a smile on my face.

The comedy is cute. The artwork is adorable. There is definitely an undercurrent of character development across Iori and Shuuichi throughout the series as they learn to adapt to this new normal. However, it also feels as if the story is missing a certain… something. Osananajimi goes on for long enough to feel like it has the opportunity to explore many ideas. The final stretch of eight chapters all feel like they were deliberately chosen to end the story. …Even if the ending is such a status quo ending that the final chapter is named ‘Status Quo Ending.’ And you can tell that the author put a lot of love into this cast of characters just from the way they are drawn and the extras at the end of each volume.

Clearly, there was a lot of love present here… so why does its exploration of everything TSF feel so… flat? Well, part of that is due to the series’ complacency with itself. Osananajimi is not trying to be much beyond a silly slice of life type affair. While I could understand that approach from a creator without a vested interest in this subject matter, Morishita Mao clearly does. Doesn’t that mean they would want to pursue more complex material? Well… not necessarily.

Something that I have noticed in my years of casually following various artists is that not every illustrator is a great storyteller. Some of them just don’t have grand ideas or ambitions for the stories they convey. And some artists do have fairly shallow interests and fascinations, preferring to focus on the more light-hearted or comedic. Especially if something revolves around drawing cute/sexy girls. I have by no means studied enough of Morishita Mao’s work to say what kind of creator they are… but that’s the impression that I get. That they are someone who favors the light and fluffy and has a love for TSF due to the cuteness of a boy becoming a girl.

So, what does that mean for Osananajimi wa Onnanoko ni Naare? Would I recommend it? Well, it brightened my mood when I was sick one late December evening, so it gets major points for that. But if you go in expecting much more than the aforementioned lighthearted anime shenanigans, I think you’ll be disappointed. It has low ambitions, delivers a thoroughly pleasant and adorable experience, but that’s about it. Would I like it to do a bit more and would I like to see its creator pursuing something grander? Of course! But there’s nothing wrong with being a 6.5/10. Some of the best things are a 6.5/10! That’s how math works!

…But for those who want high scoring bangers, check out the next showcase!

TSF Showcase 2024-02
Ellie Skinsuit by Imp Undernearth

Hmm… I’m still playing fast and loose with the rules of TSF Showcase, but my plan is to limit it to one work per artist every year. And since Imp Underneath started this year with another hot banger, it’s time for them to shine again!

Ellie Skinsuit is Imp Underneath’s longest running and most ambitious work. A multi-chapter story following Ron, a high school bully who uses a magical skinsuit gun to steal the body and life of Ellie, the older sister of his go-to victim, Henry. It started back in April 2022 and over the years it has gradually grown into a skinsuit epic that, with the release of chapter 6 last week, now exceeds 200 pages. Meaning that we have a lot to cover, so let’s break things down chapter by chapter.

The first chapter promptly establishes the core relationships of the comic, seeing Ron coerce his way into Henry’s house, only to be quickly met with scorn from Ellie. Ellie is effectively established as a protective older sister type who cares for Henry and sees Ron as the aggressive loser he plainly is. Yet before she can fulfill her threat and kick Ron out of the house, Ron pulls out the skinsuit gun and fires a red light at Ellie’s neck. Henry panics, Ron shoves him away, and with a fearful final few words, Ellie is reduced to a mere sheathe of a person that Ron promptly slides into. Henry is, naturally, horrified by this, but all he can do is gawk as the rules of reality are so frivolously broken.

Ron roughs up Henry, uses his new form to tease him, mockingly calling him brother, before debasing Ellie in front of him. And by debasing, I mean masturbates her body with the veracity of any good TSF pervert protagonist. Henry tells Ron to give her back, yet Ron refuses, parading around her body like it is his own while informing Henry of the consequences of snitching to his Mom. It’s typical bully scare tactics, threatening the victim to make sure they remain hopeless, while not strictly resorting to physical violence.

This all seems bad, but Henry has a flicker of hope that his mom will see through Ron’s disguise, except she… doesn’t. Despite acting nothing like her earlier, Ron pulls off a flawless Ellie impression, enough to make him doubt if any of this is real, or if he imagined all of it. Henry wistfully asks his ‘sister’ to see if she is back, only for Ron to reveal that, no, he was just putting up a front, and goes back to tormenting Henry via masturbating, ending chapter one.

It’s a strong, albeit conceptually standard, opening to this kind of bully possession storyline. (It’s a bodysuit story, but functionally… Ron may as well be going ghost.) Though, there are two things that I want to address. Henry’s passive characterization and the artwork of this first chapter.

While there is something to say about Henry’s passive nature throughout the first chapter, and this entire story, that’s effectively the point of his character. He is a non-confrontational person, and that is the reason he is Ron’s target in the first place. He does not have the conviction to stand up to others even as they are actively harming him. So when those harming him resemble his loved ones, he lacks any recourse other than… to grit his teeth and bear it.

You could criticize him for not being more proactive, not stealing the skinsuit gun, or threatening Ron when he has the chance. Except… all of those options have just as much likelihood of blowing up in his face. Sure, he might be able to hurt Ron and get back his sister, but he might also wind up being seen as too much of a threat, get turned into a skinsuit, and stay that way. Hell, Ron’s crazy enough that he might just chop up Henry’s skinsuit and flush him down a toilet or something. That’s how I would kill people with a skinsuit gun! Being passive and hoping that his tormentors get bored is what Henry knows, and when faced by this impossible threat, it’s all he can resort to.

As an artist, Imp Underneath underwent a lot of stylistic shifts early on, drifting so much that I initially thought they were a prolific commissioner or collaborator. Kind of like the notorious TSF Showcase staple Marialite. Just looking at, say, Asuka Possession and Revenge Possession of a Cheater, I don’t think I need to explain how I thought that. In recent years, Imp’s style has stabilized, though you can still see their style drift from work to work, with even last year’s Professional Possession having a notably different look than Ellie Skinsuit 6.

With the first installment, Imp was still working away from the more cartoonish proportions of Magical Girl Possession, and going back to it is a bit jarring. Everybody has these pudgy hands without defined wrists, while their feet are basically hooves except for when they are not. It’s a strange stylistic approach when pretty much everything else is refined. The page layouts are dynamic, the visual language conveys a large amount of information without feeling suffocating, and titillation is balanced well with plot progression. The characters are highly expressive, and make for some absolutely lovely panels, as you can see with the provided snippets.

Though the coloring is definitely weaker than later parts, feeling muted in spots, and inconsistently reflecting the tone of the comic. I don’t mind the single color backgrounds, but if you are going to use them, they should either be colored consistently, or be colored to reflect the tone of a scene. Ellie’s bedroom alone goes from dark green to red to gray to lavender and it’s just… mildly befuddling. The comic still looks good… but the later chapters look way better..

Chapter two picks up the following day, reestablishing the hostile relationship between Ron and Henry as Henry is left unable to do anything out of fear of Ron’s counterattack. A fear that plagues Ron even as he goes to school and only gets worse when he sees what Ron was doing last night. Sending pornographic photos and videos to students throughout school, saying that he is actually Ron. A chaotic stint that really speaks to just how brazen Ron is with his newfound power, and the levels of psychic damage he wants to inflict on poor Henry.

Skipping over classes, Henry sees Ron in the parking lot, talking to the girl’s hockey coach, Ms. Rey, where Henry makes the mistake of accosting Ron in front of someone else. Ron uses the situation to bruise Henry’s already wafer-thick ego as he effortlessly spreads lies that Ms. Rey believes without question. Because why would a good girl like Ellie ever lie?

At this latest low, Henry realizes that Ron is in sweats and should still be at work, leading to a flashback section where we get to see Ron in his element. At Ellie’s workplace, using her body to get what he wants. First by sinking his talons into the office boytoy with a bathroom handy— a classic— and then by using the skinsuit gun on Ellie’s female boss. He then steals her body, naturally, and arranges a meeting with Ellie’s manager (I think) where he demands that Ellie be given a six month paid vacation… while masturbating.

This is partially a form of vicarious revenge, as Ron does have Ellie’s memories, partially a way to get freedom as he settles into Ellie’s body and life, but also just a complete goblin play. It is at this point in the story that Ron establishes himself not only as one malicious dude, but someone with such a penchant for chaos and a disregard for others that… he’s pretty much a sociopath.

He deliberately enjoys watching others suffer and carries himself with a level of confidence surprising of a teenage boy. I’m not sure if this is just a residual high from using the skinsuit gun, the result of gaining an adult understanding of the world, or if Ron is just that bad of a dude. Or maybe a bit of both! Either way, it makes him an incredibly interesting protagonist. A force of destruction that you want to follow just to see what insane crap he pulls next.

He drove into a school parking lot with a skinsuit in the back seat of his car, just splayed on the seat, buck-ass naked. You cannot teach that type of brazen main character confidence! And seeing him call in his posse at the end of the chapter is both as exciting as it is worrisome. Because you just know these boys are gonna get up to some 6-star sex crimes.

Despite coming out less than three months after the first chapter, the art here took a significant step up. Hands and feet are more realistic (barring a few instances). The background designs and coloring are more detailed, though the color choices still feel a bit arbitrary at times. Ellie’s hairstyle has evolved to feature her signature anime girl hair vents, while not quite getting its banana yellow color. That’s an addition for the next issue. And the comic continues to feature Imp’s effective, dynamic layouts, cramming a lot of story across just a few pages, while using the sexy fun times to progress the story.

Chapter three… is a bit messy. It resumes on Ron’s friends showing up, with Ron trying to earn their trust by letting them molest Ellie’s body. During this scene, we get more insights into Ellie, revealing that she was not only the former hockey team captain, but the prom queen and a general role model, adding to the sense of corruption throughout this story.

This realization emboldens Henry, inspires him to try to overpower Ron, only to swiftly prove why that is a bad idea as he is slapped and then thrown into a sports equipment shed. Or a fuck shed if you prefer. After a weirdly elaborate perspective shot, Ron reveals a skinsuit he prepared for this occasion, that of Dawn, the office intern at Ellie’s workplace. The story could have just progressed from here, but Imp got too enamored with this concept, and this 50 page chapter is extended with an 18 page flashback.

In the flashback, Ron uses Ellie’s status to lure Dawn to the backroom, where he skinsuits her and uses her form for some skinsuit penial masturbation. Because I guess he just had to feel what it was like to spunk the monkey with a female hand. He nearly gets caught, fails a charisma check, gets fired, and just walks away from this job before calling up this body’s ‘honeybunny.’ This gives way to a ten page date sequence that, from a timeline perspective, feels pretty sloppy. While I will say that a lot can happen in eight hours, this section is really pushing it. And, as part of a broader story… this entire diversion feels like another story idea that Imp wanted to explore, but they shoved it into Ellie Skinsuit instead. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fun concept that appeals to the universal human fantasy of being a spoiled hot bitch. It just doesn’t fit here.

After introducing Dawn, Ron gives her husk to one of his buddies, and the two sinisterly comprehend just what sort of chaos they could get up to with bodies like this. All while Henry… looks on with despair, fully aware that someone just lost their body, mind, and soul, stolen and twisted as part of a sick game for sick people. Ron then had sex with one of his friends, debasing Ellie’s body yet again. But the sex (and torment, don’t forget about the torment) comes to an end when Ms. Rey moseys on in.

Ms. Rey is straight shook by what Ron has gotten up to in her shed, and rather than defend himself, Ron aims for the nuclear option. Supposedly fueled by Ellie’s memories, Ron admits to having always hated her, that she is the reason the hockey team is going downhill, and at her lowest point… he put her out of her misery! Now turned into a skinsuit, one of Ron’s friends slides inside Ms. Rey and immediately slides into a flawless impression of her. He has her memories, her demeanor, and mimics her convincingly in front of two hockey team members.

This scene does a great job of selling the power of the skinsuit gun and having access to one’s everything. It adds legitimacy to Henry’s early comments about how skinsuits let one steal a person’s soul and mind, and makes Ron out to be a more grounded threat than he originally was. He’s still one preposterously fucked dude, but it shows that he really isn’t a mastermind or anything. Just drunk on adult confidence.

Using this confidence, Ron’s friend then kicks a ‘queen bee’ off the hockey team because she was mean to him in class. A move that should be petty, yet he sells it. He takes the intimidation flaunted by Ms. Rey last chapter and cranks it to the next level, coming across as a chilling figure.

A little while later, after the quartet of skin thieves do more sex stuff, this chapter is brought to a close, teasing that next chapter they will continue this body thievery… with Ellie’s mom!

In the author’s notes at the end, Imp acknowledges that this comic ballooned out of their control, and… that definitely is true. While nothing added here is bad, it lacks a certain level of focus and was drawn away from the main plot with the introduction of so many characters. As a critic, I see this as sloppy, while as a creator… I know that this just sometimes happens. You get on a creative roll and just stop caring if something belongs, because you want to do it, damn it!

Artistically, Imp continued to shift their style throughout this comic. The coloring on characters is more saturated, skin tones have more hues, the eyes underwent another redesign— actually, eye designs change with every chapter. Things overall feel a bit looser, with character faces and bodies condensing more for expressions. And while I think it makes better use of background colors and exaggerated shading to sell the tone, it still has some odd choices for background colors. Particularly whenever the backgrounds are a dark forest green. It still looks great, and the sequential storytelling, conceptually bloated though it may be, continues to impress with its effectiveness and efficiency.

Alright, part four! Henry immediately tries to warn his mom (Maria) about Ron when he makes his plan known. But Ron snags his phone and puts on a naturally flawless Ellie impersonation. Ron nails it and Henry is sent running home as quickly as possible. Henry thinks that he made it in time, his mother comforts him, he starts to explain… and right when you think he might finally have a W on the board, ‘Ellie’ shows up. Henry learns he is too late, that Ron and his friend, Tim, stole his mother’s body and soul 15 minutes ago and he is left to sink back into despair yet again. He has no allies, no recourse, and now lost both his mother and sister to these cretins. He is utterly helpless. Unable to do anything except hide in his room as Ron and Tim have incestuous lesbian sex on the living room rug. Like a bunch of animals.

Henry eventually sulks out in the aftermath, where the two skin thieves remind him of his position in this relationship. How unless he behaves and lets them be, they will “do something that can’t be undone.” Henry is then left to stew between the two during a call with his father where they, effortlessly, fall into their roles. In fact, they are so convincing, Henry almost falls into the fantasy. …But he can’t. Because these two aren’t his family. He doesn’t have a real family. Not any more. All he has left is his resolve. All he can do now is… endure it. Endure it and hope that somehow, some way, he will be able to save them. (So far, he doesn’t. You’ll need to wait until at least chapter 8 for that.)

Moving to the artwork, this comic came out three months after part three, and while the style drifts yet again, the changes are less pronounced. Well, beyond a new donut-shaped eye design that I don’t care for. The dual colors add more expressiveness, but there is too much white and not enough iris most of the time. Aside from that, it can be sufficiently moody and atmospheric when it needs to be, and Imp has gotten very good at making characters look adorable and twisted at the same time.

Chapter five breaks the timeline by having Ron leave the country, meaning Henry is stuck at home, with Tim still stuck in his mother’s body. In prior chapters, Henry has been locked into a state of misery, regularly tormented by someone who was his de facto aggressor, and knew how to push him in the worst way. Here… Henry has pretty much broken. Instead of getting upset, he just stews in frustration and disgust over what his life has crumbled into. A life of servitude as he is constantly exposed to the relentless debasing of his loved ones by instruments of a breadthless id.

The chapter sees him mull through a day in his life, accepting that Tim will be fucking men in the living room at any time of day, and that he must care for him. He does the dishes, the laundry, food prep, and even cleans up Tim’s piss and shit— because Imp’s a gross fucking dude like that. All while watching him lay on the fuck couch, eating junk, getting drunk, using his tits as a table, and ramming clunk up his cunt. If Henry disobeys, he gets a firm talking to and a firmer foot on the dick. It’s not even with the heel. It’s like they’re just trying to muck up Henry’s sexuality until he snaps and becomes a real hentai protagonist.

After this chapter establishes Tim’s love for destroying this beautiful body he had been given, we are given two… vignettes I guess you could call them. One where Henry plays the role of pack mule at a grocery store where Tim effortlessly slips into his Maria impersonation when talking to another housewife. She brings up how there are nudes of Maria floating online, to which Tim promptly blames Henry, saying that he stole them and sold them for ‘some video game items.’

This is the only time Henry looks truly hurt in this entire chapter, shocked that Tim would go to these needless lengths just to hurt him. And he cannot make an objection, as it would just make his mother look worse.

Afterwards, the chapter ends with a quick check-in to the skin thieves wearing Ms. Rey and Dawn, who have both gone the club slut route, and Tim is quick to join. He blows $1,300 on a dress that will be destroyed in the throes of sex, leaves with a faceless man, and his parting words are… the type of shit that only a comic writer has the balls to write: “Mommy’s gonna go party and waste all of Daddy’s hard earned cash on drugs and prostitutes.”

When faced with this… Henry is left just glad that another day’s over. It’s an amazingly complacent and depressing note to end this chapter on. Chaos has melted down into something viscous and rank, the insanity has decomposed into depravity, and hope is off slurpin’ goblin piss— straight from the dick— because it was that desperate for something warm.

Chapter five is a beautiful example of body theft despair. It captures and builds upon the unabashed disgustingness that I adore from similar stories, and renders it in an image devoid of shame. The writer completely gets the fantasy they are dealing with, and the only way they could have nailed it harder was with a time skip!

Visually, what stands out to me about this chapter is how it is not afraid to show anything. A grown woman pissing on the floor, scarfing down trash, getting beer in her cleavage? Sure! No problem! That is exactly the sort of thing an artist should be using their metahuman powers to draw! And the lighting took a notable step up, using colors to better convey the tension at the grocery store, the nightlife billowing in the background, and the sustained lazy afternoon debaucheries of Tim.

…I’m like 3,400 words into this and I’m just getting to the latest chapter. Damn it! I guess this is legally a review now!

Anyway, chapter 6 of Ellie Skinsuit is… honestly more of a side-story than anything. Rather than continue the soul death of Henry, the comic instead follows Ron on his aforementioned bangin’ vacation. But rather than see him do Europe with Ellie’s breastest buddies, this chapter sees him head to Italy two weeks early to engage in some skinsuit shenanigans. So, in my mind, this isn’t truly part 6, as much as it is Ellie Skinsuit Gaiden: In Italia con Lussuria (To Italy with Lust). I mean, it’s such a side-story that Henry isn’t even mentioned during the characters page.

So… the thing about this chapter is that it feels more like an idea bucket than anything else, and it can be divided into three parts. The first half sees Ron, as Ellie, venture to the fictional medieval city of Caggero. There, Ron enjoys the sights, the freedom of physically being Ellie without socially being Ellie, before deciding to make the most of this maze-like city and become a skinsuit bandit! …Or rather, more of a skinsuit bandit! He snags young mothers, lesbian lovers, police officers, office ladies, a veritable vertical slice of the 108 breeds of humans out there!

He is such a prolific snagger that he becomes known as The White Ghost of Caggero, and rather than view this as a sign to cool it… he decides to veer into it with the second part. Where Ron slithers his slimy self into the skin of the local mayor, Andrea Bruno, and does a shirtless interview where he addresses the urban legend directly. It is such a bold move that really shows how confident and full of himself Ron has gotten at this point, and how powerful of an impersonator he had become. Slithering his way into the skin of anyone on his radar, using them get get precisely what he wants, and knowing when to be an all-American horndog who fucks his way out of a bind.

However, about halfway through this 60 page chapter, this focus shifts into its main story as Ron happens across a shy, innocent enough, woman by the name of Alexis. It starts out as yet another one of Ron’s skinsuit flings, only to quickly learn that she is an Italian princess. Ron views this as an opportunity for mischief, but rather than continue to follow along his perspective, it instead shifts to one of Alexis’s butlers, Charles. A diligent young man who had devoted his life to protecting and serving his Lady, a real noble sap, who Ron chooses to use as his plaything during his tenure as Lady Alexis.

He dresses provocatively around him, flirts with him only to, like a bully, push him down and mock him for thinking that he had a chance with a princess like them. …And at this point, it was clear to me that Imp really just wanted a ‘possessed ojou-sama becomes a seductress brat’ type story. The comic takes ample time to illustrate the decadent life of Ron as Alexis. Having an army of maids waiting on beck and call. Lounging in elegant bathrooms and gardens. Receiving a pedicure while sipping champagne and eating tiny cakes. Getting lesser lords to swear fealty by kissing their feet. It’s the rich life front to back— the best life.

Charles eventually gets suspicious about his Lady’s sudden change in demeanor and goes to check on her in the middle of the night… only to find her in the throes of bodily pleasure. The peg finally falls into the hole and Charles realizes that this cannot be the princess he has served for years. Ron congratulates him for seeing through his wafer thin facade, but even with this conviction, even knowing that this is not the Lady he has sworn to serve… Charles can’t say no to that royal pussy! Especially when it’s glazed in crazy sauce!

From this climax (intentional double meaning), the chapter wraps itself up, getting Ron out of Alexis’s body before ending on an open note, with Ron, as Ellie, meeting Ellie’s buds for a European vacation.

As previously stated, a big allure of this chapter is the Alexis subplot and how much one clicks with this type of ~~possession~~ body takeover story. I think it is appealing from both the perspective of Ron and Charles— the joyriding interloper and the one in on this forbidden secret. The story has ample time to illustrate and build up the details of these relationships, getting the reader to care about both of them, even in isolation. And it does not leave any significant scraps of potential behind. It is an effective execution by someone who knows damn well what they’re doing.

That same sentiment carries over to the story visually, though it does mark a considerable departure away from prior chapters. Eyes are now all black and shorter than before. The proportions are more realistic, with the characters having less of a cartoonish stoutness and smaller heads. While the backgrounds are more striking and detailed, with Imp clearly using the Italian inspired scenery as an artistic challenge to see how well they could bring these sights to life. …While also not being insane and knowing when to use a gradient or plain color. It was about 7 months between parts 5 and 6 and I have to say… Imp got better in that time.

Since I found them a few years ago, Imp Underneath has consistently impressed me with the quality and ambition of their work. And going through such a large segment of their catalog with this showcase has only reminded me why. They are diligent in their storylines, regularly push the creative envelope, and have shown a consistent desire to improve their already impressive craft. Ellie Skinsuit is a wild ride, an excellent example of escalation in a serialized multi-chapter TSF narrative, and a delightfully indulgent narrative that, barring a few divergences, keeps its story at the forefront.

…Is that it? Well, that was (over) 4,500 words so I’m going to say… yeah, that’s it.

TSF Showcase 2024-03
Fujoshi Trapped in a Seme’s Perfect Body by Seru and Jouvru

Back during the height of my obsession with TSF, during my teen years— when I only knew it as TG— I was firmly disinterested in anything that involved a female-to-male transformation. Why? Well, I was a burgeoning trans girl in denial back then and I found the idea of a female-to-male transformation to be somewhere between uninteresting and uncomfortable.

That was over a decade though and in the ensuing years, I have become increasingly interested in the concept. All due to a mixture of getting older, presenting as female, and getting bottom surgery. Especially the last one. Having a vagina really helps demystify them. Unfortunately, female-to-male TSF stories tend to be pretty darn rare in the circles I usually check.

There are a lot of reasons for this. A moderate chunk of people invested in TSF or TG seem to think it means Transform Sex to Female or Turn into a Girl or at least act like that’s what it means with their gatekeeping. The market for erotic visual media that targets a male audience is far bigger than that which targets a female audience. Society, just in general, has a lot of hefty gender baggage that affects how men and women are viewed and catered to— which is a novel-length topic if I’ve ever seen one. I could go on, though I’ve already dragged this into out enough as it is.

Fujoshi Trapped in a Seme’s Perfect Body is a boy’s love TSF story that began its life as a 2016 Kickstarter project created by the burgeoning publishing group The Yaoi Army. Why exactly you would start a yaoi group with a story that featured a female protagonist is a bit beyond me, but I’m entering this world as an ignorant outsider who knows basically nothing about BL.

The story follows Misa Nanase, an 18-year-old fujoshi (female yaoi fan). Misa’s a girl without many friends, who does not bother to apply makeup or brush her hair, and whose life centers around sweets, cute things, and boys. Especially boys! Based on the Japanese naming conventions here, I initially assumed Misa would be a more Japanese rendition of this concept. In execution though, she’s pretty firmly an American creation.

Misa is a forgetful ditz, bad at school, and has a low interest in anything based in reality. Yet, she likes to ship and fantasize about cute boys she sees in real life, assigning them archetypes as she indulges in her own mind. She is implicitly deeply inundated with online culture given her use of 2010s internet-isms (LOL, OMG, GDI, dafuq, nani the fock, and trololol) and penchant for ‘fangirling out’ when it comes to her interests. Despite not taking much care of herself, she has natural good looks. She is a classically trained anime pervert who gets nosebleeds when aroused. And I see a lot of overlap between her and a genre of person that was fairly common on the likes of Tumblr, before Verizon devastated that site. She even uses emoticons in her dialogue, which doesn’t even make sense because… this is a comic. You can just have the artist draw the characters making expressions.

I can easily see how someone might find Misa to be a… frustrating protagonist to deal with. She is pretty stupid, prone to dramatic fits, can be highly emotional, and while secretive about her interests, once she finds someone who she can trust, she barfs her personality all over ’em. Personally… I can’t help but love her. She is a dramatic upbeat dumbass who, while a handful at times, would be a lot of fun to hang out with. She’s got at least an 8/10 hangoutability score.

After spending the first chapter establishing her character, Misa then meets her main love interest for this series, a tall muscular man with thick eyebrows and slick black hair by the name of Kazuo Arata. Kazuo stumbles upon Misa as she is reading her gay porn behind the school during lunch, and rather than hold this against her, he uses this as a jumping off point to form a relationship with her. A relationship that Misa views as an unlikely friendship where she gets to tease a man who looks like he walked straight out of her erotic comics. While Kazuo views it as the start of a burgeoning romantic relationship. Except he does not want to risk the relationship by pushing things into a romantic direction, so he settles for friendship, hoping the ditzy Misa gets a clue.

After establishing this familiar dynamic, Misa saves a little old granny from walking into traffic and is rewarded with a magical wish-granting pendant. For the record, this character has zero relation to Miracle Granny from Raiden Shogun is my Wife?!, the greatest TSF supporting character in the genre’s history. And she’s no Computer Granny either!

Unremarkable granny gives Misa instructions on how to use the pendant— take it to a hill at midnight with her special someone and make a wish. Misa doesn’t really get it, because she’s a dumb pea, though Kazuo helps her out with the process and helps escort her to the hill at night, bringing her food and a jacket, like a good boyfriend.

The two share a heart-to-heart as they wait for the stroke of midnight to pass, and when the time comes Misa makes her wish, only for nothing to happen. Kazuo then gives Misa a bracelet with his name on it and a kiss on the cheek. You know, like friends do. And just friends. Sadly, the rules of the subgenre dictate that Misa remain oblivious, so she merely waves Kazuo away and goes to bed. Misa is naturally upset that she did all this work only for her wish— to become a man— to not come true. But little did she know, this magic just operated on a slight delay.

The story then reaches the essential ‘wake up in a new body’ scene… and it is an odd take on the concept. Misa wakes up in her room with the body of an über masculine and super hot version of herself. She has wide shoulders, pronounced hip bones, picture perfect abs, handsomely disheveled hair, a nice big cock, and most importantly, perky pink boy nipples. Basically, her idea of a perfect seme’s (top) body, with enough familiar characteristics— hair color and eyes— for her to still be identified as Misa.

Rather than jumping up in joy over this, Misa… continues to be the most oblivious person imaginable. She is such a dumbass she does not notice the fact she’s now a man as she walks around in her torn up pajamas, takes her clothes off, showers, or dries herself off with a towel. She does not notice that her body completely changed until she wipes away a foggy mirror, and then mistakes her reflection for a “psycho-killer-pervert.” It is a level of obliviousness that makes me think that Misa has something really wrong with her, and is easily the longest realization I have ever seen in any TSF story. It’s hilarious.

Misa is naturally elated with her new body, from the handsome face, the instant abs and, most importantly, her “weapon of ass destruction.” Sadly, before she can make like a good TSF protagonist and use fappy faps (that’s a weird Pokémon reference), she needs to go to school, yet does not have any clothes that fit her new body. I mean, she could raid her dad’s closet, though, again, Misa is a low INT himbo. Instead, she calls Kazuo, he struggles to believe her at first, yet eventually buys it and agrees to help Misa, lending her one of his uniforms. Just no underwear because… the writer wanted to give her underwear later for some reason.

Yeah, this is about where the story stops being as straightforward, now that the fairly basic intro is done, and starts making a lot of, frankly, bizarre choices.

Kazuo begrudgingly takes Misa to school and begins to come up with a fake backstory for her. A fine plan… except before they can act on it, they learn that Misa is now known as Misaka by all of the students and everyone else in the world, including her parents. Meaning their planning was pointless, and they could have intuited a reality change by… having Misa look at her ID and seeing the name Misaka on it.

As Misa and Kazuo head to school, they are spotted by a pair of siblings, Kenji and Kyoko Kyouya. With Kyoko being adamant that she get Kazuo as her man, while Kenji is very interested in Misaka. It is a good setup to end the first volume of a story, introducing antagonist figures and alluding to future events. Yet rather than let this mystery brew, the second volume starts out with a flashback to three years ago. Yes, the story promised that it would show our freshly transformed protagonist attend school… only to go back in time to explain a mystery introduced by the cliffhanger.

In said flashback, it explains that Misa had a circle of nameless friends before and she earned a good reputation around school. So good that rich man-scum bastard Kenji came onto her, and she rejected him. In turn, Kenji used his rich kid powers to make her socially ostracized. As a piece of background, this works, though this first flashback marks a certain… problem that comes with using flashbacks in general. Flashbacks are a great way to add things and fill in blanks, yet they should never be used to contradict what we see before as, when events are viewed linearly, they should make sense. And here… they kind of don’t.

Misa is not initially presented as someone who is shunned by her peers. She is presented as someone whose personal interests make it hard for her to relate to others. Someone who loves BL deeply and cannot hide her fascinations. Yet this chapter is saying she had a social circle in spite of her love of BL, that she was distanced from it, and her supposed friends never brought up the rumors with her. …Yeah, that’s not a huge problem, but it does feel like a retcon made to give Misa a background with Kenji and a reason for her to despise him.

…Okay at this point I think I can shift to talk about things generally. While Fujoshi Trapped in a Seme’s Perfect Body has a pretty solid foundation, as the story goes on, it starts to get more… messy in the details.

Fujoshi Trapped in a Seme’s Perfect Body is ultimately a love story about two friends who, due to the circumstances around this transformation. Who are given a new opportunity to grow closer as they try to deal with their problems, open up, and encounter typical lover’s quarrels. Missing meetings when other events run too long. Communication issues and an unwillingness for both parties to listen to the other’s excuses due to their preconceived assumptions. All before the two are reconnected in a place of importance, followed by a bonding experience where they accept this transformation and dynamics.

Unfortunately, it lacks a level of intent, purpose, and apparent planning. It honestly reminds me a bit of how a lot of independent serialized fiction (particularly fan fiction) works. Where there is a vague outline was in place, yet the writer kept coming up with the actual beats of each story and chapter on the spot.

There is a bit where Misa thinks everybody at school is fawning over her boy form, when really they are just fawning over Kazuo. Even though there was no indication that other people had the hots for him before… or after. There is a convoluted sequence where Misa and Kazuo are both soaked in rain after running “a block” and need to strip and shower. …When they could just wear Kazuo’s spare clothes. Instead, Kazuo has Misa hide under his bed… wearing nothing but a towel, before inviting his fujoshi older sister into his room. From a scene setting perspective, I get it. From a logical perspective, I would be deeply disappointed with myself if I structured something like this. There are better ways to get a naked man underneath a bed.

Misa’s mother and father are initially presented as being disapproving of her fujoshi lazy girl lifestyle, yet after her transformation, her parents give her two suggestive body pillows as presents. Even Misa thinks this is weird, yet there is never a real explanation for this other than… Misa’s parents are trying to be nice to their gay son?

Volume 3 opens on Kazuo’s fujoshi sister, Azumi, training him up to be the studly blunderbuss of idealized masculinity and a brief flashback to school, showing Misa being a pervert. Which… is a fine inclusion at best and an unimportant pace breaker at worst.

The core of volume 3 is an attempt to transform the romantic relationship here into a love triangle with the inclusion of Yukino into the mix. Yukino is a soft cutie boy who Misa had been shipping as the uke (bottom) with other guys for three years who just so happens to be gay— or at least gay for Misa— and asks Misa on a date. Misa keeps this a secret from Kazuo though and, like a ditz, needs to do some scheduling balance. Except, like a ditz, her attempt to fix things only makes them worse. It works, except for how the writer is clearly conflicted about what to do with Yukino. Yukino gets a wild redesign before the date and presumably gets eaten by the bed in the love hotel, as he never shows up again. No follow through, no Kazuo roughing him up, no attempt by him to reconnect with Misa.

Volume 4 similarly opens with a flashback of Misa and Kazuo going on a date to Disneyland where they dress up as a prince and princess and have their first kiss. …Even though they already had their first kiss in volume 2. It significantly changes the context of their relationship, and in a way that just makes them both seem… stupider for not saying they love each other. While also… dramatically changing a lot about their interactions throughout the first three volumes, because… they’ve gone on at least one date together.

In context, this is meant to juxtapose the fact that Misa and Kazuo are still in a rough patch after the love triangle blew up, leading both of them to try dating someone else on the rebound. With Kenji and Kyoko from the end of volume 1 suddenly making a grand return to swoon over their respective target. I understand why this conflict is included, yet there is a constant sense that neither party wants to do this, that they want to forgive each other and move on with their relationship. Especially because this is all because of a misunderstanding built on a misunderstanding. It’s a common conflict in love stories, and while some might say it is just part of the genre… I don’t like it. Not at all. The conflict takes forever to resolve, and feels like it exists to misdirect and worry the reader when… obviously the couple in the throes of gay sex on the covers are going to get together.

So, am I doing a showcase on this because I view it as something promising that, through many missteps, does not reach its full potential? …Yes. But that’s not the only reason.

While I can criticize many things about this series, I still had a good time reading it. Even though they do make dumb decisions, the cast of Misa and Kazuo, along with various other members of the supporting cast, are endearing characters who have an earnestness and shamelessness that I really enjoyed. Misa and Kazuo are opposite ends of the himbo spectrum, and Seru consistently captures a solid dynamic between the two. The tone of the story is mostly kept light and playful, with occasional fantasies thrown in for good measure, making the thing a fun and breezy read. While the various internet-isms of the story fade away as the work matures and developers, turning them into something to help set the stage, rather than a novelty that outstays its welcome.

Fujoshi Trapped in a Seme’s Perfect Body succeeds on a moment to moment level, doing enough to keep the reader constantly entertained, and without many slow spots. It does so many critically important things well that I cannot say it is bad. It’s just… sloppy with a lot of its structure and construction. It is a particular sloppiness that makes me look at this as a story that should be read, broken down, and then used as the foundation for something better. Because once you get rid of all the crap, you have something pretty good.

…I’d make some cheeky joke about how I’d like to try my hand at doing this, but I have way too many things on my plate this year to write TSF Series #XXX: The Fujoshi Gals in… Total Marsification. Cripes that’s an obscure reference that nobody should get. How about TSF Series #XXX: Take My Body and Make Me an Ikemen? Or TSF Series #XXX: Fujoshi no Ikemen – Living My Erotic Fantasy?

On that note, how does Fujoshi fare as a TSF story? Well, it fares pretty well for a while. You have Misa’s initial amazement, her geeking out over male clothes, gawking over her male bodies, and being in a male changing room, and some fun gender snafus. Like Misa pissing into her face— because she has one of those weird penises that point straight up instead of pointing out. Misa needing to deal with constant erections, because she has a fujoshi mind in a hot male body. Or a weirdly elaborate explanation of how to pee as a man, complete with references about avoiding underwear stains from not shaking out enough pee.

The story is also comfortable in eroticizing a male body in a way that really does help the sexual fantasy of becoming a man. Even though Jouvru only likes drawing… maybe three body types for men. Overall, I would say that it does enough to make the TSF element to feel like an essential part of the story, and the level of exploration feels appropriate, if a bit front-loaded. Nothing too unique, though it did get my imagination moving at points.

…However, the whole TSF angle gets mucked up with all of these flashbacks, which distract from the fact that Misa is stuck as a man now, in the present, and cannot get back to how she used to be. I love TSF stories where bodies and sexes flipped about, yet this just does not work for me. The story is about dealing with a transformation. Stop going to a place where the transformation did not happen.

Next, I should talk about the artwork, because it’s… weird.

My first thought when reading this comic was that this was originally a webcomic of some sort. Early on, backgrounds are basic or non-existent. The artwork on display has a not-quite-professional, somewhat rushed, look to it. Like the artist was trying to get things done quickly and ‘good enough.’ Though the paneling and general vision of the story remained fairly strong, showing that the artist might be of a burgeoning technical skill, they do understand how to layout a page in a way that’s appealing to the eye. And despite its shortcomings, the art carries with it a creative ambition, trying to be expressive and flashy when the scene calls for it. Art is ultimately about skill, vision, and compromise. Everybody has thresholds of these things they prefer, and I’m pretty happy with the balance on display in the first three chapters.

In the subsequent chapters, the artwork generally improves, yet it does occasionally see reprisals of shortcomings from the initial chapters. Plain backgrounds, weird proportions, faces that are meant to be expressive, yet look awkward. Certain chapters are full color, where the additional layer of detail does a lot to spruce up the artwork and hide the imperfections that stick out in a black and white comic. Partway through volume 3, there starts to be a notable artistic drift, with the men being drawn as having wider shoulders and more pronounced pecs.

By the time the series reaches volume 4, it sees a considerable boost to the quality of the artwork, mostly with the backgrounds. Based on the credits, I think the backgrounds were mostly handled by one of Jouvru’s assistants, and the results are… ambitious, yet inconsistent. Sometimes they arguably look better than the character art, while other times you can see the 3D model that was traced or certain background textures stick out. Like the distractingly high res brick wall texture.

This change is paired with some slight redesigns for characters, another artistic drift, and more ambitious layouts. It all feels like a considerable step up from where the series began, and while it still has a few instances of artistic jank, I find that it gives the comic more personality.

Now, I think that’s it, so— oh. Right.

Volume 4 is a pretty satisfying end to the series, as it sees Misa and Kazuo finally accept their feelings for each other. However, the chapter does end on a cliffhanger, and a tease for the fifth volume. Volume 4 came out in 2018, so… what gives? Where is volume 5?

It’s not on the official website, doing a basic search, I can find a notice about pre-order pages going up, there was a Kickstarter for it from May 2019, but I cannot find it! I can find a GoodReads page for it. I can find the alternate universe doujin. Which I am not covering and did not buy, because I’m not paying $15 for a shitty quality PDF of a 50 page comic.

Seriously, I bought volume 4 and was sent this absolutely gross PDF with super low res images. It looked better after I extracted the JPGs, but it was still artifacted to hell and I had to use Waifu2x so it looked presentable. Why can’t everybody just be like Fakku and give me 2255 x 3200 resolution PNGs? Or, hell, be like most DLSite artists and give me JPGs!

Critically important tangent aside, I found an update on the Fujoshi series posted in May 2023 as a Kickstarter update… except it was backers only, so I cannot read it.

It’s been 4.5 years since the project was funded, it met its goal, and this isn’t a game or anything. This is a 150-ish page comic. Why has it been subjected to so many delays? Was the artist just booked doing stuff for this sexy monster boy yaoi VN? I could probably figure this out if I dug around and asked people… but I’m already covering four volumes this week, so I think this is enough to end things.

Taking everything into account, I liked Fujoshi Trapped in a Seme’s Perfect Body. It has good humor, fun characters, and a lot of good ideas that I would love to eventually play around with. As someone who is trying to write more FtM stuff, it was a great reference, and I will probably be looking back at it for inspiration over the coming months, maybe even years. Because Fujoshi Trapped is at least one of the best long-form FtM TSF comics. …I mean, the FtM fields are so barren that such a title is pretty much meaningless, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.

…Okay, I seriously need to stop these super long TSF Showcases. What do I have planned for the next one— another 600 page comic? As Misa would say, FML…

TSF Showcase 2024-04
Oto x Maho by Shirase Shuu and Suemitsu Dicca

Edit 1/28/2024: I changed the segment where I guessed what the title of this comic meant based on feedback from Cassie.

You know what there’s a shortage of? Magical girl TSF stories! And I don’t think I need to really explain why. Magical girls stand up to injustice, look pretty, and are able to defeat any threat with the power of love and bonds! That graphs so well onto a typical trans narrative that you don’t even need to try! And you don’t even need to go the standard ‘teen boy becomes a magical girl’ route. You can futz around in the margins, like with Mahou Shoujo La Valliere by Kouji, which… I really want to do a showcase on. Unfortunately, 5 of the 11 chapters are still untranslated, and Kouji sorta abandoned that series. I’d think about funding a translation myself, but I’ve got a mortgage to pay.

Recognizing this deficiency, Natalie.TF contributor Cassandra Wright recommended that I check out Oto x Maho. A four volume magical girl TSF manga that ran from 2008 to 2012 and was based on a 16 volume light novel series that ran from 2007 to 2015. Well, at least based on what release dates I could find. That’s one of the problems with digging for relics from a decade ago. Another is that you could spend several hours reading through a series, hoping it does something interesting, when the only interesting thing about it is how many things it lacks.

…Yeah, it’s going to be another one of those showcases. Sorry about that. I don’t always showcase things that are good, because that would be booooring!

Oto x Maho, which I think means sound x magic, but according to Cassie, it probably means otonoko x magical girl, but abbreviated to be more open to interpretation. Anyway, the comic follows Kanata Shirahime, a 13-year-old boy who is the son of a magical girl and, one night over dinner, is told that he too must become a magical girl. His mother, Konata, then proceeds to explain his duty in what has to be the worst way possible. Transforming into a magical girl, revealing that their family cat, Moeru, is actually her mascot companion, and throwing Kanata at one of the series’ mandatory monsters. Who are called Noise, because the writer ~~was a big fan of~~ ~~The World Ends With You~~ wanted a musical motif, going so far as to call the magical girls ‘Tuners’ and… not much else.

Before Kanata can get a grip on what the hell is going on, Konata adds one final reveal. That she is going to be touring the world for three months and Kanata— a 13-year-old— will need to fend for himself. Well, with the help of magical cat Moeru, of course.

From here, the story shifts into several layers of set-up. Character introductions, establishing a status quo, including a monster of the chapter, and showing Kanata cut his teeth on the whole mahou shoujo thing. It prioritizes comedy above all else, giving the story a light and silly tone that makes it easy enough to get along with and offer the story a benefit of the doubt. Chapters feel different, things are progressing, and stakes slowly rise higher as sprinkles of darker ideas are thrown in. Like with the mini story arc spanning chapters 5 to 7, where Kanata is plagued by insects who fill him with doubt and hatred over himself and his body. This causes him to lose his ability to transform, and sees him gain the strength to fight on with the reassurances from his friends, all before fighting a shadowy doppelganger. Nothing too unique, yet it’s nothing to sneeze at either.

However, that arc is about a third of the way through this manga and at that point, whatever it is about is not very clear… and it’s never particularly clear. Why is that? Allow me to pause as I break down the elements this series is working with, starting of course with Kanata.

As a character, Kanata is a generally kind young man with a scattering of insecurities related to his body, namely how feminine he looks. This is a familiar enough concept for TSF protagonists… except Kanata is not just some looking dude with longer hair that just naturally looks good even with boy levels of maintenance. Kanata’s hair goes down past their butt, they have a distinctly feminine physique, and they somehow look more girly when wearing boy clothes. There are reasons why Kanata looks this way, but I need to question why the writer went in this direction. Kanata looks like a girl no matter what their sex is. I’d say that Kanata is the most girly looking ‘supposedly male’ TSF protagonist I’ve ever seen, except it still has nothing on the indisputable masterpiece that is Raiden Shogun is My Wife. At least Kanata’s not padding their masculine bra…

Despite all of this, Kanata does not like it when people view him sexually, like a girl, and wants to affirm his masculinity. He is distinctly not trans, and the story never truly entertains the idea that he might prefer to stay as a girl. He is a boy, that’s it, and I think the story really pissed away an interesting concept here. Especially after learning that… Kanata grew up being sorta gender fluid. At the very least, Konata presented him as male or female throughout different years of his youth. A bit like Shion Wakanae from Family Compo.

Also, Kanata’s magical girl form is just Hatsune Miku. Kanata, or Kana-tan, has twintails, elaborate hair clips, wears a loose dress shirt with a tie, a pleated skirt, black shoes, white stockings, and modesty shorts, or rather splats. From the skirt up, they look just like Miku. And when they get a last minute redesign, they get Miku’s disconnected sleeves too!

Kanata, as a character, has a lot of potential to be an interesting queer character thrust into the position of a magical girl, and given the ability to live as both male and female. The story acknowledges this potential… yet does not make use of it. …Actually, no, it’s worse than that. Oto x Maho identifies potential, establishes interesting ideas, and seals it off before it can start exploring it with even a modicum of depth. I want to say that this is just isolated to Kanata, but… it’s not. It’s kind of everything.

Moeru takes the role of being Kanata’s perverted sensei figure, and while the story establishes him as a fighter of some capacity… he’s pretty much just a gag and exposition character. When some bickering is in order, Moeru claws in. When someone needs to explain something, Moeru can act as the bottomless barrel of exposition. He does not need to be much more, yet he is firmly nothing special. Also, he’s a perverted old man who gets his jollies from watching Kanata, a family member, transform into a girl. …Moving on.

Ruma Hina, d.b.a. Grace Chapel, is presented as Kanata’s magical girl partner, and the second member of a would-be team. She is a lot more of a fiery sort than Kanata, more experienced, less emotionally mature, and does that thing where she ends most sentences with a verbal tic, “desu no.” She is also an orphan who was abandoned by her parents, lives in the woods, and kills Noise to make enough money to feed and clothe herself. …Yeah, this comic has a homeless child! I bet you didn’t expect that!

Sadly, despite having so much trauma that one could get into, and having a backstory rife for exploration… The story does not do much with it. Yes, it establishes she has anxieties and doubts that are fed on by the Noise. However… the story is just not interested in exploring her background in detail. They just gesture toward her going through trauma without saying much of anything. I would say you have to address or explore her trauma and backstory more but, apparently, you just don’t need to! You can just have them spit some shit about how they can protect themselves when… no, child, you cannot. You might think you can, but that’s only because you haven’t been park-raped yet.

Jou Asuno is pushed as a significant character, yet he mostly exists to sexually harass Kanata, even though everybody harasses Kanata. He’s the resident dude and male friend, though considering how he loves Kanata to the point of making crossdressing figurines of him, maybe friend is the wrong word. He appeals to a particular breed of humor from a particular moment in time and little else.

Yori Ikuse is an odd inclusion, as she mostly exists as a supporting character for Ruma. She’s a 24-year-old woman who treats Ruma as a little sister, helps her out from time to time and… is also a magical girl. I’m not sure how or why that is possible, and aside from insecurities about being an (almost) Christmas cake, she really does not have much to add. She shows up for 9 pages, gets bodied by Noise, encourages Ruma, helps Ruma from a mental health crisis, attends a mini chapter, and is a secondary player in the final battle. I think she’s cute in an overbearing big sis sort of way, but the story would probably be better without her.

Lastly, we have Class President who… I don’t think was ever actually given a name. She is introduced as a love interest for Kanata, this platonic ideal of a caring and considerate class president. She gets a few chapters dedicated to her and, after a conflict leading into the 75% mark, she is revealed to be… the mastermind!

…But mastermind of what? What is this series really about? What is the message? The goal? Good question! …That was my answer.

Oto x Maho sort of… lacks any thematic cohesiveness that I could intuit, and I like to think I’m pretty good at this. It gestures toward familiar ideas. The power of bonds, the importance of accepting and loving oneself, the power of determination and persistence, and the importance of maintaining harmony in a world full of destructive noise. Yet… it does not really say anything. And the final arc of this story exemplifies that well.

It has a good premise. A friend of the protagonist reveals that the bonds they shared were mere lies and manipulation while promising to begin an apocalyptic event, dubbed The Night. The traitor is seen conversing with an unseen ruler, is allied with a shadowy and imposing figure, and the familiar setting of the series is locked in a perpetual midnight with a blackened sky. The traitor talks about creating a new world by doing away with this one, revealing their own hidden power, and challenging the protagonist to a fight. The fight is slowly shattered into a heart-to-heart, and a new truth is then revealed along with the ultimate evil. Who, in this case, is called Fearness. Yes, you read that right. The big bad, the ultimate evil, is straight up called FEARNESS. FEARNESS!!!

The problem is that it is more complicated than it needs to be, poorly connects to what happened in earlier chapters, and has one entirely pointless character. So pointless I’m not even going to mention their name. It has bombast and energy behind it, some palpable passion from the writer and artist. A lot of the imagery is cool, and there is a considerable tension… but for what? It all feels too derivative to mean much, and the ending… just kind of sucks. Because it lies. It tells the audience that something major happened, that two losses were experienced, and then undoes it a few pages later. …Also, the less said about the genital weirdness, the better.

Oto x Maho is the ‘off-brand kinder egg with no toy inside of it’ of TSF comics. It looks appetizing, and can be enjoyed if you just savor it, lathering your tongue in a sufficiently pleasant sweetness. Yet, when you try to take a bite out of it, you realize it was full of air! Of nothing!

…Okay, that might be harsh, though after reading through this comic, I certainly felt like I had gotten precious little from it. It lacks a clear thing it is trying to do and ends with a wet fart where nothing was accomplished… despite the heroes all saving the world. It has so much potential lying around that it’s frankly baffling how it turned out like this… though, I do have a theory. Maybe this is just a highly limited adaptation. Manga takes far more time to make than a light novel, and while the adaptation ratio is variable, you can’t fit 16 light novels into 4 volumes of manga without leaving behind 25% to 50% of the story.

That is not meant to say that I think the artist on this book, Suemitsu Dicca, did a bad job. While the first few chapters are a bit iffy with some of the paneling, presentation, and general way that information is displayed, it gets better as it goes on. The characters look better and have more eye-catching expressions, which do a lot to add to those with thin personalities. Suemitsu clearly grows more comfortable with the action scenes demanded of this series the more they draw. And panels are displayed in a more clean, readable, manner. Due in large part to their art, I would say the comic can be pretty enjoyable if one is just focusing on the moment-to-moment beats. It’s also gosh darn adorable, especially with the full color chapter introduction pages. They’re a good artist, and they did a good job bringing the story to life in a sufficiently lively manner. …It’s just that the story itself, through whoever/whatever’s fault, was not very good.

The most frustrating conclusion to have when engaging with a work is one of sheer befuddlement as to what the intent and vision behind the project were. Sure, I might be able to make general, vague, or sweeping conclusions based on obvious factors. But sometimes, I just find a work where I am left bewildered as to what the goal was, and not in a ‘well, that was one extra chunky nutty bonkers bar’ sort of way. In the boring sort of way!

Oto x Maho is one such work, and while I really bloody wanted to find something to praise about it… I was at a loss. It does not offer much to TSF fans, as the series has no interest in exploring the differences between the protagonist’s original and new form. For magical girl fans, there is nothing particularly unique here, as everything feels like something that has been done in a bigger and better story. And none of it is cohesive enough to feel like the writer truly had a story they wanted to tell. As such, I would not recommend this series, and… it isn’t even a good example of what not to do.

Sorry about this one folks. I invested too much time into this one to not talk about it. But rest assured, next week I am going ~~back to a certified Natalie.TF banger from one of the kings of TSF comics~~ to debut a Chari Shal translation of a 1981 TSF comic! Stay tuned and stay crispy!

TSF Showcase 2024-05
Boku Tamasaburo by Ono Shinji (Yoshimura Tatsumasa)

We’re going back to the past yet again with a super obscure 1983 TSF manga provided by Natalie.TF all-star ChariShal with Boku Tamasaburo. I would offer some backstory as to this comic, though there really isn’t any as far as I can tell. It came out 40 years ago, the series was seemingly canceled after seven chapters, and if you want the full story, you would probably need to dig up old magazine notices and interviews. Also, the mangaka responsible for it passed away in 1995, according to Manga Updates, and I have not heard of any of his other works. Also, quick disclosure, I helped Chari out with the proofreading process. Now, without further ado, let’s just get into this comic!

Titular protagonist is Tamasaburo Sakanishi, a 13-year-old kid with a crush on one of his classmates, Kanako Minakuchi. Rather than just stew in insecurities, Tamasaburo just shouts at her, introducing himself, and asking her out on a date. Kanako accepts, and everything is looking right as rain for Tamasaburo… until a baseball zooms itself into his crotch, sending his balls up into his inguinal canal. Unable to yank them out, Tamasaburo heads home and hopes that his balls will return. Instead, as he prepares for his date the following day, his entire body undergoes a rapid TSF transformation. Complete with a bigger chest, narrower waist, broader hips, a higher voice, and a flat crotch.

Before going on, there are three things I want to talk about regarding this transformation. One, Tamasaburo is a first-year middle schooler, which I extrapolate into him being 12 or 13. 13 sounds better, so I’m going with that. This makes his transformation into someone with such… developed features a rather strange choice. Yes, puberty affects different people at different rates, though he’s… fully developed. Also, it makes any instance where female Tamasaburo is sexualized by adult men, and there are a lot of those, extra scuzzy.

Two, this is actually a surprisingly good TS/TG transformation sequence from a creator established outside of and before the subculture really came into its own. You have the gradual discovery, the shock and panic over having a different body, highlighting different bodily parts, and gradually doling out the changes to both the audience and protagonist.

Three, I find the whole mechanism to Tamasaburo’s transformation to be very cute. For those not in the know, when they say that AMAB people’s ‘balls drop’ they are referring to the testicles being released from the inguinal canal, where they are then left dangling in the scrotum. Most men never bother trying to shove their testicles back inside there because… it hurts. Testicles are not meant to be that close to body heat, as it kills the sperm. However, many trans women, and trans femmes, engage in the process of tucking their testicles back into their inguinal canal and keeping their testicles in place using their penis and a gaff. Doing so makes their crotches flatter, makes it easier to wear femme clothing, and offers a certain level of comfort. Well, after the first few days, when it hurts like a ripe bastard. (I wore a gaff for ~12 hours a day for 5 years, so I know all about this stuff.)

Now, I don’t actually think Yoshimura Tatsumasa had this trans angle in mind when writing this story. This was 1984 after all. I just find it to be funny that there is a TSF protagonist who transformed by doing something trans women do to help curb gender dysphoria and present as female.

Anyway, where was I? …Right!

Since he still has a date this morning, Tamasaburo improvises, dresses up in his sister’s clothes, adopts the pseudonym of Tamago, and poses as a girl to meet up with Kanako. He passes well, gets flirted on by some delinquents, and manages to hit it off with Kanako, while preventing her from getting too angry with his regular identity. In fact, it goes well enough for Kanako to invite Tamago back to her home where they relax, have tea, talk about who Kanako likes, and have a proxy date that ends when Kanako… just falls asleep. Even though it’s, like, 11:30 in the morning. Still, a win’s a win, through his invasion of her privacy Tamasaburo is confident that Kanako likes him, and everything is going groovy… except for how he is still a girl.

That brings the first chapter to a close, and Boku Tamasaburo has already established that it is more of a… TSF disguise story. A story where the transformation is used as more of a social superpower, allowing the character to deploy two identities while navigating around different social situations and form dual relationships with people. Kind of like how it was deployed in 1972’s Doron, yet extended into a more comedic, chapter-based, setup. Despite having what is regularly referred to as an attractive female body, Tamasaburo is not interested in doing anything sexual with his female body. He uses it as a tool to reach his goals and, based on some of the looks he throws together, he likes looking pretty.

However, this is not a one-way transformation, as Tamasaburo eventually learns how to switch between these two forms. Yet rather than featuring two different switches for switching between forms, such as sex/electricity, hot/cold water, or gender affirmation/magic, Tamasaburo’s transformations are triggered by one thing. Pain! If Tamasaburo trips, gets bonked on the head, or undergoes any sort of physical shock, he switches forms. This is a highly versatile transformation tool for an 80s comedy manga, because slapstick was still en vogue, and allows the story to switch Tamasaburo’s sex in inopportune moments. It is something that can easily be manipulated, just as easily done by accident, and the transformation time takes… a few minutes to play out, though it gets faster as time goes on. Now, I’d ask how tripping or getting bonked in the head gets Tamasaburo’s balls out of his canal… except I don’t really care.

The subsequent six chapters all build on this disguise angle in their own way, and all center around Tamasaburo’s pursuits of Kanako, as he is just a regular old loverboy like that. Chapter 2 follows Tamasaburo, still stuck in girl mode, as he goes to the pool with Kanako to keep the school playboy, Masao Kusakari from wooing her. Mostly by lying and framing him as a pervert while enjoying the perks of being the hottest girl at the pool. I’d say it showcases Tamasaburo learning what it means to be desired rather than desiring someone else but… he’s 13 and I don’t want to touch that.

Chapter 3 sees Kanako attend a beauty contest for teen girls to earn a trip to Guam, only for Tamasaburo to enter the contest as Tamago, leading to a lot of the usual hijinks. Scoping out the girls changing room, using the wrong bathroom, breaking kayfabe by acting masculine while in a female space, and Tamasaburo being seen as the prettiest girl of them all. Even after Tamasaburo trips and discovers how to undo his transformation, he still riles up the horndogs in the audience with a wardrobe malfunction. That might sound lecherous, but in execution I found it to be more cute than anything.

Chapter 4 sees the 13-year-old Tamago and Kanako enjoying their vacation in Gaum, alone, with no supervision. Tamasaburo gets even closer to Kanako through their female relationship. He saves her from child predators by seducing them into jellyfish-filled waters. And another bout of lewd hijinks are underway during a limbo competition. A competition hosted by racist stereotypes who… were not okay, even in the 80s. The competition follows a similar setup from the beauty contest and seeing Tamasaburo win because he turns back into a man at the precisely right time. It’s a pretty novel idea, as I guess limbo is an instance where boob shrinking can be beneficial and boners are not, though it is a strange thing to fixate on as the crux for a chapter. The competition also bears no prize for Tamasaburo, which is weird as this entire trip was a competition prize.

Before moving to chapter 5, I need to acknowledge that this work is a sex comedy, though in a slightly more lecherous way than I prefer, due to the use of disguise, i.e. subterfuge. Much of this series is just about Tamasaburo using his Tamago identity to get physically closer to get his jollies off. From looking at her boobs, watching her present herself more casually, or just copping a feel. It is, of course, all played for comedy, and not meant to be serious, yet it is not as transparently playful as, say, Electric-Exchanger, and Tamasaburo is never punished for his perversions.

Chapter 5 is the school physical chapter and it is divided into two halves. The first half sees Tamasaburo getting a physical while in his girl form from a mostly blind male doctor. By stealing the doctor’s glasses and pretending his back is his chest, he is able to bamboozle the poor old man. Which is a sufficiently humorous and goofy premise, though it is founded on some questionable sequencing. Why doesn’t he just perform a physical shock on himself to return to normal to avoid this conflict? Because it’s funnier this way. Now, why doesn’t he go to school as male and then become female after falling down in his chair, which should be considered a physical shock? …That’s a tougher nut to crack.

Everything works out for Tamasaburo, yet again, and Kanako even invites him out to the movies after school. …But he is something of a greedy Gus and poses as a female doctor to scope out Kanako’s naked body. He steals clothes and a wig from… somewhere, breaks into the announcement room, and engages in all sorts of shenanigans with Kanako. Massaging her boobs, enlarging her smaller boob using a dirty toilet plunger, and presenting his growing boner— which points forward, like a real penis— as his pregnant belly. It’s almost absurd enough for me to love it… just not quite.

Chapter 6 is a far more traditional disguise story, as it sees Kanako invite both Tamasaburo and Tamago out to a hot springs village. Meaning the core of the chapter is about Tamasaburo crossdressing and transforming between these alternate personae in order to avoid suspicion from Kanako, while getting into many a scramble. Ruining a honeymoon (and marriage), performing an accidental strip show for… at least 27 men, dressing up one of those peeing child statues, and getting into a TF malfunction in a hot spring. I have a real soft spot for chapters, or episodes, that follow this format, as it is always a good vessel for confusion, misconceptions, tension, and excitement. You pretty much know the protagonist won’t get caught here, but the new location and the constant flipping back and forward leaves a lot of room for comedy, and this one sure delivers.

Chapter 7 follows a similar idea, though with the context of a lively birthday party. Tamasaburo invites Kanako over, he manages to get closer to her by transferring a ping-pong ball between their mouths and playing… Twister? Well, it’s more like bingo mixed with twister, which is still a good enough excuse to get Tamasaburo’s face crushed between Kanako’s thighs and panties. The sexual tension is too much for Tamasaburo, he loses, and is subjected to a most severe punishment. Crossdressing!

Before continuing, I should clarify something that reinforces the idea of this being more of a disguise or alternate identity story than a TSF story. While Tamasaburo’s body changes as part of the transformation, that is mostly his primary/secondary sexual features. His face is androgynous and does not change, while his voice changes, he can apparently flip between them at will, and his hair does not grow or recede— he just uses a wig. Because of these factors, he can fulfill his male and female personae while physically being either sex. Which means if he is wearing baggier female clothing and a wig, he winds up passing no problem, as he looks just like Tamago. …And when he tries crossdressing, everybody just thinks he is Tamago.

Desperate and locked into a corner, Tamasaburo tries crossdressing again, this time aiming to look ugly. He doesn’t like doing this, and knows he is just making himself look bad, yet he has no alternative. Unfortunately, even this was not enough, and he still gets clocked as Tamago, leading to a… pretty half-ass conclusion that raises a lot of questions about Tamasaburo’s sewing skills.

That’s how the comic ends. With a final chapter that did not actually feature any physical transformation. Though it does, in a sense, feel like a sufficient place to end it. The final chapter sees Tamasaburo in his biggest bind yet, and it’s not clear where the story could go next without changing its status quo. Such as giving Tamasaburo a confidant, or advancing his relationship with Kanako.

Before pivoting into the conclusion, let me quickly talk about the artwork here. I always find the 80s to be a fascinating era to look back to when it comes to anime and manga, as it was home to the biggest transformation of aesthetics. You had artists trained in older styles and aiming for something more realistic or based on the western cartoon inspired works of the 60s and 70s. Yet you also had the artists who were doing their part to define what would become the dominant style throughout the 90s. Which eventually led to what most people imagine when they hear the anime art style.

Boku Tamasaburo is definitely more old school, still containing many classical cartoon sensibilities while also aiming to capture some form of reality. Expressions are still exaggerated and eyes are, generally, large and given a great deal of attention. I personally found it to be cute, filled with a lot of endearing small details, tiny expressions, and sprinkles of visual ambition, such as the limbo sequence. It’s clearly the work of a skilled creator, just one who operated in a different time with different standards. I also need to give shout outs to Chari for their scans here, as they really do the artwork justice. They are so high resolution and clean that you can see every pen stroke.

As a 40-year-old comic, I of course find it to be an interesting historical relic in mapping the evolution of the TSF genre. Boku Tamasaburo came out a decade after the genre really got started with works like Joka he… and Boku no Shotaiken, yet before seminal works like Ranma ½, which helped mainstream the concept of TSF.

On that note, I brought up how it still feels very much based in the conventions of a disguise or alternate identity story, rather than something more internal or personal. And how its perversions are very much a product of their time, aimed to match the sexual fantasies of the shonen audience it was aiming for. Not necessarily being a girl, but being able to get close to girls, get to see their boobs, and be seen as safe and comfortable around them. However, that does not mean Boku Tamasaburo fails as a TSF story.

The story is ultimately about the protagonist dealing and coping with a transformation, reaping the boons and withstanding the banes that come with it. Whether it be making use of newfound assets or trying to hide one’s transformation to preserve their reputation around their loved ones. Throughout the story, Tamasaburo does become more comfortable and happy with his female form, with the sixth chapter starting with him going shopping for new clothes and enjoying the stares he gets for being such a cutie. He wants to transform back at the start of the story, yet once he finds a way to get back to normal, he just uses this as an asset. He does not view this form with scorn, and near the end of the story, he is starting to take pride in it. It becomes a part of him and… that’s something that I like it to see.

Sure, a single irreversible transformation has more drama and gravitas than a gender fluid power fantasy, but… gender fluid power fantasies are dope! When Boku Tamasaburo leans into this, and chooses to be a playful sex comedy, I think it has moments of excellence. However, the work lacked sufficient time or room to really expand upon its burgeoning identity. If it got another volume or two, I’m sure it could have found its voice and vibe and become something that I could hold up as a classic. Yet it comes just short of that.

I’d still openly recommend Boku Tamasaburo as a historical artifact that features the early development of many familiar TSF trappings, and a historical curio that could have easily been lost to time. Though, I wouldn’t say you’re missing out on something special or foundational, like many of the other relics Chari has unearthed. It’s a lot of fun and well worth a read.

TSF Showcase 2024-06
JK-ka Refle [JK-ification Salon] (Ch 1, 2, 3, and 4) by Kouji

I could easily write a 10,000+ word essay on Kouji’s work, the themes they fixate toward, the dynamics they explore, and the sheer tenacity present across their body of work. Hell, I could warrant a TSF Showcase on nearly every one of their works. Their baseline of quality is that high! I won’t do that because I have a six month cooldown rule for showcasing the same artist, as I want to show off a wide variety of creators. …But I just passed the six month mark for my last Kouji showcase, so let’s dig into this well yet again!

You might think I would use this as an opportunity to talk about the incomplete, partially untranslated, yet excellent Mahou Shoujo La Valliere. Or their masterpiece, Turned into a Breast Milk Fountain by a Beautiful Vampire and the remake of the same name (that I briefly talked about in Natalie Rambles About TSF Comics). Instead, I want to talk about a four-part anthology of theirs, JK-ka Refle! Also known as JK-ification Salon. Or High School Girl-ification Salon for those who don’t know what a JK is.

As the title suggests, the series centers around an establishment that lets its customers temporarily transform themselves into high school girls of their choosing. After their transformation, they are serviced by a ‘real’ high school girl who gives them massages, lays with them, chats with them, goes out on dates with them, and so forth. …Well, that’s what they say initially, but they do also offer rambunctiously kinky sex for those with deep pockets.

It’s also at least somewhat based on JK businesses throughout Japan. A dubious ongoing trend where high school age girls are pushed into doing activities like compensated dating and reflexology. Activities that seem innocuous when phrased under these terms, but are dangerously close, if not interwoven into, the underage sex industry. …Look, when you dig into the hentai mines, you’re just going to find stuff like this.

With that taken care of, the first entry follows Hirose, an overworked Japanese salary man who thinks he is going to a regular JK business. A place where he can lay beside, get massaged by, and chat with a soft pretty girl. Instead, he becomes his ideal JK— a big-breasted gyaru— and is serviced by a “proper girl” named Midori. They’re lumped together in an isolated room and from there, things play out about how anyone versed in this niche would expect.

Hirose is pissed that he was duped into a transformation like this and just wants to go back to normal. Midori offers excellent service, giving him a massage to remove the kinks from his body— which I guess transfer over as part of the transformation. Getting stimulated like this gets Hirose more comfortable with his body, and he starts pivoting the session in a more sexual direction. He tries to act dominant in front of Midori, but she’s a professional and Hirose barely knows how his new body works, so he is quickly overwhelmed by her sexual prowess.

Afterwards, Hirose turns back to normal and returns to his mundane overworked office life, yet he cannot forget about that experience and wants to try his hand at Midori again, wanting to dominate her. Hirose uses his paycheck to pay for a night-long date with Midori, socializing with her as they do teenage girl stuff, before soliciting this child for sex at the local love hotel, because he’s a class act like that. But rather than forcing her into sex, he tries to convince Midori to have sex with him as a man. Hirose does not accept ‘no’ though, and Midori decides to cut him a deal. If he can avoid cumming for an hour, then she will go on a regular date with him during his off time. …Which she uses as an excuse to fulfill the ‘domination fantasy’ of this story, as Midori deceives Hirose with a fake timer, pulls out a strap on, and gags him for good measure.

While Hirose does not say anything for the rest of the comic, the framing of the last page implies that he was actually super into that, and would quickly become one of Midori’s regulars. Because, deep down, Hirose is into being dominated by a cute proper girl who is into some kinky stuff.

Describing it like this, it really does not sound too remarkable. It is just a TSF story built around the appeal of a male character being emasculated not only by becoming a woman, but being denied a dominant role in a sapphic relationship. However, what makes this stand out is, naturally, the details I skimmed over.

Kouji’s comics are always a visual treat for me. The paneling can seem cluttered, maybe even a bit hectic, when viewing its structure, yet it is seldom ever confusing how it should be read and has a dynamic flow that makes every page feel like its own canvas. The characters are incredibly expressive, with every face clearly having a lot of thought put into how it should contort and what it should say about the character. And while the characters do stem from archetypes, they do have some nice little back-and-forths as they try to feel out their relationship. With Midori being cordial and pleasant enough for Hirose to think she’s lowered her guard, only for her to slide into her more assertive side.

It’s good, though nothing too wild or remarkable beyond the high quality artwork and being a solid TSF hentai comic. One that sells itself on its oddball premise and an archetypical dynamic. Fortunately, this was just the beginning!

Part two follows Shintaro Tateishi, your typical virgin otaku software engineer who gets dragged to the JK Salon by his friend Satoru Saikida, more on him in the next chapter. Satoru arranges the transformation so that Shintaro is transformed into a replica of his unrequited high school crush, Ayaka Nagahori. An absurdly busty and remarkably cheery girl who Shintaro holds in reverence, rather than blind perversion. Conversely, his partner is Arisu, a short, flat, cute, and aggressive little palmtop tiger who, unlike Midori, takes a far more direct and honest approach. Because it takes all types to run an underage specialty brothel. Also, I know her name is probably supposed to be Alice, but the unofficial translation calls her Arisu, so she’s Arisu to me. It’s a pseudonym anyway.

Rather than being elated by this magical event, Shintaro crumbles as he is reminded of how kind Ayaka was to him during high school days, and feels like a creep just fondling her boobs. A pretty even-keeled reaction all things considered. But rather than letting him just walk out, accepting that he should spend his life as a creepy virgin, Arisu gets pissed off and drags him off to “grow some balls.” Even though Shintaro looks like he’s schlepping around basketballs.

This leads into the main showpiece of the chapter, which I would describe as… public bath exposure therapy. Where Arisu drags Shintaro out to a public bath and forces him to not only exist in a female space, in an extremely female body, and talk to women, while Arisu provides… sexual reinforcement. She uses Shinatro’s unfamiliarity with his body to threaten him with sudden intense sensations, rewards him for keeping up appearances, and helps him maintain his composure with a steady influx of sexual stimulation. …Actually describing it, it’s a pretty weird concept, but it also makes some sense. It’s positive reinforcement, forces Shintaro to de-other women, and in a business like this, the more the client orgasms, the better.

After spending all that time in the bath, Shintaro passes out and has Arisu escort him home, where he collapses and is inclined to just stay there. But Arisu, due to either her own disgust with Shintaro’s behavior or wanting to eke more cash out of this sucker, chooses to escalate things. Explaining that there are secret options involving girl on girl options, and pushing him into it. Because it doesn’t matter if he consents, it only matters that it happened. With the latter it referring to sex with a double-ended dildo while Arisu teaches Shintaro how to have sex as a man… while getting fucked as a woman. A scene that I… definitely looked at for inspiration before.

The contrast of seeing this little doll-like girl become this sexual aggressor, going from gentle kissing to whipping out this monster bigger than her arm is just hilarious to me. Same with the idea of her apparently being knowledgeable enough with sex to give tips like this to a man. It really gets my brain wondering as to just what she could have been doing… and how she truly views this job.

Arisu is assertive and aggressive around Shintaro, pushing him to go further and expand his comfort zone, albeit in unconventional ways. Though the reason for her behavior is left more ambiguous. She regularly mentions the fees, the options, and directly refers to the job as she justifies her actions, to the point she could be read as someone just exploiting a frazzled guy for extra cash. However, she also seems to have strong ideas of how men should behave, berates Shintaro for being so passive, and pushes him to be… better, going so far as to tell him to get a real girlfriend. Plus… she probably wouldn’t be doing something like this unless she got some enjoyment out of it. I guess you could say she has layers, but… she’s also honest at the same time.

Overall, I really like chapter two. It offers a completely different dynamic from the first one and I admire the creative route it takes to go from a timid guy becoming his crush to the sexually absurd conclusion. I’m a big fan of more mellow, grounded initial reactions to TSF, such as shame, loathing, or rejection of the impossible, and the hyper-escalation of a lot of short-form TSF stories. …And this offers both while, naturally, reaping the benefits of being a 50 page comic. It’s so good that I’ve taken ‘stuff’ from it both intentionally and accidentally.

Part three of this series digs deeper into Satoru Saikida, a shut-in day trader who manages to make obscene amounts of money that he spends on all manner of typical otaku things. Online games, figurines, and most especially sex. Being such an aficionado of prostitution and sex parlors that he considers himself to be the “Mating Press Geezer.” A big guy who likes to spend big and embarrass those who serve them before dominating them. So naturally the JK-Refle decided to turn him into the most child-like high school girl possible and pair him with a super tall curvaceous lady.

Satoru is hesitant to believe that this is all real, assuming that this is just hypnosis, but his servicer, Shiho, knows just how to make him feel tiny, dainty, and completely blow his mind. Through the power of cunnilingus and sizeplay, Satoru is made into one of the most avid patrons of JK-Refle, flaunting his wealth and cash in order to fulfill whatever sick, twisted, desires he has. …Emphasis on sick and twisted.

Satoru’s girl form deliberately looks like a child, right down to the uniform style, pigtails, and even the iconic red grade schooler backpack. So much like a child that Satoru gets into a love hotel by going potty in his dress. It’s blatantly in ‘jail time’ territory just from a visual level, yet from a narrative level everything about this is just farcical. Satoru pours himself a glass of alcohol, gets into a tight one piece, sings a girly pop song with his new voice, and when Shiho’s busty giantess friends, Anna and Ruiko, come in, he becomes king of titty mountain. Rubbing two difference sets while sitting between two others before getting gobbled up by a titty bed. Which then leads into Satoru getting sexually bullied by these three to the point he pisses the bed because… because Kouji’s just freaking weird like that.

It’s just an onslaught of being sexually overwhelmed for nearly 30 pages, and it is a spectacle not only in how it progresses, but how it manages to evoke a sense of scale. The sheer number of angles, perspectives, and ways Kouji finds to illustrate the size differences central to this chapter are staggering to behold. To the point where I want to say that some impossible space tomfoolery is going on… but I cannot find any proof. Chapter three is shameless, abrasive, and pretty disgusting… while also being home to so much care and skill put into it that I cannot look away.

As for part four, it’s also pretty messed up, just in a new way. This entry follows Akihiro, a businessman with a sister several years younger than him, Kana, who works for JK-Refle. Seeing as how their parents are dead and Akihiro had to basically raise Kana, he is naturally protective of her and goes to investigate this establishment, only for Kana to lure him in and transform him into her twin. Akihiro is vehemently baffled by this entire situation and begs Kana to give up this life of ~~lite~~ sex work, but with her image of a doting little sister already damaged, Kana reveals her true self. A sadist who gets off on men turning into women and dominating them until they become her little sister… and also a brocon.

With the previous hostesses, they seemed like relatively well-adjusted people, despite their bizarre profession. But Kana is straight up bonkers! She taunts and teases his brother, forcing herself onto him, and shows a complete disregard for any and all autonomy of control Akihiro has over his own life. She is convinced he will be happier this way, that her viewpoint is superior, and uses his unconditional love of her to just… torture him.

She walks him with a leash that’s attached to his neck and clitoris, with vibrators taped all over his erogenous zones. She rapes him in her classroom while demanding that he become her younger sister. She pulls out a strap-on while claiming that her job is necessary for the good of society, as some men need to become female masochists. And right after Akihiro voices objections, right as he is near the precipice of an intense experience in a new body, she completely and rapidly shuts down the character, just to make him admit that he wants it.

Kana is a horrific person whose disregard, disrespect, and entitlement of her brother is disgusting on many levels. She never doubts her convictions or her actions and conducts herself with such poise and composure that it feels as if she spent months planning for something like this to happen. She actively denies who Akihiro is as a person, molding him into her own image, strictly to confirm her own predetermined conclusions and fulfill her twisted sexual fantasy.

It is so extreme… yet I cannot help but admire how transparent and indulgent it is. There is no effort to humanize her, no attempt to truly explain why she feels this way about her brother, because it does not truly matter. Because this is about someone using the power of this magical place to fulfill a deep desire impossible in reality, and using it to fulfill their worst impulses. And there’s something beautiful about that. I often feel the need to complicate things but sometimes… a one dimensional character is best. (Also, some people are one dimensional.)

Viewing it as a series, JK-ka Refle is pretty bizarre. Every installment explores a different dynamic and brings with it its own flavor, and while it does ‘fumble’ in certain places, I was thoroughly hooked when I sat down to re-read it for this showcase. I would say that the first part does feel like the concept came before the story, and relies on that a bit too much to forge its own identity. …But for a 36 page comic, I can’t really blame it for feeling under-detailed, and the artwork alone makes it an entertaining read. The second entry has the strongest characterization and plot. The contrast between the main characters works well, the progression of events feels… pretty grounded all things considered. And it ends on a very humanizing note. While the latter two parts both impress with their relentless excess and devotion. Crafting scenarios that, for all my eccentricities as a creator, I still look at with a sense of awe.

Also, while I only gave it one paragraph before, I do need to sing the praises of Kouji’s artwork as they have consistently impressed me over the years I’ve been following them. Kouji’s ability to bring characters to life through their expression, the visual ebb and flow of their stories, and the striking angles they use always make their work a treat. And for all the artistic evolution they underwent, much of which can be seen here, there’s something about their style that I just adore.

Now here’s where I would make a comment on Kouji and what they are currently doing, and the answer is they’re still plenty active. They’re still putting out new comics regularly. Though they have taken a break from TSF based on their latest four works. I don’t really have the ability to pinpoint why, but I do understand it conceptually, as Kouji has been mostly doing TSF works since 2016. Here’s hoping that they come back with something soon, and if not… I don’t have any shortage of works to choose from when I choose to pluck another one of their works from the vault.

TSF Showcase 2024-07
Bocchi de Shinda Ore ga Bishoujo Nurse ni Natta Hanashi [The Story of How I Died Alone and Became a Sexy Nurse] by Oden Ohgan (TuriSasu)

Okay, I need to take a break from these longer multi-chapter affairs and cover something smaller, more recent, and more… bloody weird, if only due to how it manages its transformation.

The Story of How I Died Alone and Became a Sexy Nurse begins with the death of 32-year-old Midori Makunouichi. A pervert who has just been trying to get by in life until it was cut short by some unexplained happenstance. However, as he recalls his life flashing before his eyes, he wakes up to find himself in the body of his nurse, Yumena Ishikawa. Midori’s naturally shocked by this and, seemingly realizing he is in a hentai comic, he bum-rushes his way from the mirror scene to fondling to rushing into the men’s room to explore his new body.

I’ve read way too many TSF comics to not roll my eyes at… everything that happened here, and I was half ready to write off the comic here. …But then TSoHIFAaBaSN has its protagonist go full nymphomaniac seven pages into the comic, becoming overwhelmed by ‘a woman’s desire’ and ‘female instincts’ and gives the eyeless man before him a bathroom blowjob. It’s brazen, shameless, nonsensical, and gives Midori access to Yumena’s memories for reasons that make… some sense.

This is a semi-common element of body swap, possession, or miscellaneous takeover story. Where the act of sex or performing actions as a person grants the ‘operator’ of the body access to its memories. It works as a narrative tool for impersonation, makes sense as the memories would be stored within the synapses of the brain the ‘operator’ is using, and has some reason to be tied to sex. Sex is something intimate and unique to each body, and there’s a reason why terms like ‘post-nut clarity’— or kenjataimu if you wanna be spicy— exist.

Anyway, despite getting Yumena’s memories, Midori returns to his apartment, where he panics, has a crisis that kicks his libido into high gear, and is interrupted by Dr. Ryo Nagura. An elderly doctor who developed one of the most wack possession methods I have ever heard of. A drug/medicine that is to be injected into a deceased person and later a different drug is injected into a living person in order for the deceased person to possess the living person. It is not like the person’s soul is being extracted and turned into soul juice. Instead, I think that both targets are just injected with the same specific drug to bind or link their souls, allowing the deceased one to become dominant. Kind of like a pair of matching artifacts that facilitate a soul transfer, but in the form of a chemical slurry that takes the memories and persona of dead people.

I don’t know if that’s just sloppy writing, or a creator being on some next level concept, and I don’t think either answer would satisfy me.

Anyway, Dr. Nagura explains that he roped Midori into this because he wants to steal the body of the young son of the hospital director, Shuu Kataoka. Dr. Nagura needs Midori to inject him with his magical science soul drug after he is dead, and then inject Kataoka with a drug, stored in a different bottle, so he can possess him. In exchange for doing this, Dr. Naura promises to put Midori back in his body. …Which makes no sense, as Midori’s body is supposed to be dead. …I think.

I skimmed over it, but the comic is not clear with how its timeline of events play out. Things begin with an introduction to Yumena and her little sister, Rina, who is also a nurse, and then Dr. Nagura pronounces that Midori is dead before he dismisses the other staff from the room. Then Dr. Nagura injects Midori with a drug with his name on it, with him listed as the subject, asking him if he prefers older or younger sisters. This is a bit strange, as Midori is supposed to be dead, and then we see a fade to black transition followed by a flashback collage on Midori’s life. Only then does Mirodi wake up in Yumena’s body. …Except he later refers to meeting Rina at the hospital as if he was possessing Yumena. So, what happened? How did Dr. Nagura inject Yumena’s body? Because it looks like Yumena was injected while in the hallway, only for Dr. Nagura to just… vanish? I’d like to think I can follow a gosh darn comic, but the more I look, the less sense this makes!

Anyway, the rest of the comic is pretty easy to summarize, so I’ll just get through it. With Yumena’s memories mostly in his head, Midori returns to his temporary home and fantasizes about raping Rina because she has the audacity to flaunt her boobs and butt. The following day, Midori comments on how he’s treated better as a woman than a man, which might have some weight if we saw more of his past life than a single panel and lewd apartment. All before Midori is called into Dr. Kataoka’s office after getting snitched on for the bathroom blowjob the other day. And not by a camera or anything. The guy told his mom that he was bathroom raped by a sexy nurse. Dr. Kataoka uses this as an opportunity to get his dick wet with the loose woman under his command, and Midori gets traded around until he becomes… the proud hospital nympho. For the record, this sex festival— sextival if you will— lasts for 14 pages, or a third of the comic.

Then Dr. Nagura dies and Midori goes on to execute his end of the bargain. Not because Midori wants to go back to his old life. He loves being the proud hospital nympho, loves “being treated like an onahole,” and loves all the attention and love brought his way as he takes three dicks at once. He intends on staying as Yumena for life! …But he does owe Dr. Nagura a solid, so he takes the drug and stabs Dr. Kataoka. Except Midori, like a dumbass, uses the wrong drug, one that was labeled with Yumene’s name and was “meant to be injected into Yumena.” I assumed that this meant it would transfer Yumena’s consciousness into Dr. Katoka’s body. Instead, it transfers a copy of Midori’s consciousness, upon death, into Dr. Kataoka’s body… wait, what?

So this drug can not only transfer the soul and memories of dead people into the living, but it can be used on multiple people? And if it was Midori’s consciousness, then why was the bottle labeled with Yumena’s name, and not the one with Midori’s name? It’s not a transfer or copy of Midori’s current consciousness, so… can a consciousness be transferred infinitely? How does this work?! I feel like I’m trying to solve a Japanese adventure game mystery with only half the clues!

…Oh, and the story ends with proud hospital nympho Midori going home and injecting Rina with the same drug he injected Dr. Kataoka with. Thus causing Rina to become Midori’s proud hospital nympho little sister, who he can… fuck while fucking men. Like… I sorta get that, but why is that the ultimate goal? Whatever happened to the Midori in Dr. Kataoka? I don’t know, and nobody seems to care!

What I keep going back to in this comic is the fact that I cannot determine if its complications and likely plot holes are somehow intentional, or just an accident. Clearly the creator had some reason to create such a roundabout medical possession premise, and while I could accuse the unofficial translator, TIFTL, for misinterpreting things… I don’t think that’s the case.

I struggle to believe that this narrative complexity is anything but intentional as the production values for this story are… pretty high. This is not some growing amateur of an artist still getting to grips with storytelling. They are seasoned in their craft and the comic looks both clean and professional. Sure, it struggles to really distinguish the two sisters and men in this world ~~suffer from Youngblood’s Disease~~ don’t have eyes, but the comic does not take any visual shortcuts or look like the artist was cutting any corners.

I thought that this was just going to be some blasé nurse fetish comic— which, as someone who worked for a urologist group for four years, I do not like, and for all the obvious reasons. (Nurses don’t dress like that, hospitals are full of sick and old people, hospitals are less sexy than circuit courts, hospitals have strict ethics guidelines, etc.) Instead, it has managed to burrow into my head for weeks now. It could have taken the easy route and been a fine, if sex-heavy, TSF possession comic, only for it to drift off the road. And even now, after airing my grievances and spreading this brain curse… I don’t really know what to think of it.

TSF Showcase 2024-08
Okitsune-sama de Chu♥ by Sumino Yuji

Well, this was a blast from the past. I distinctly remember reading this comic back in 2009 or 2010 after learning about it on the old Farhad TG manga site. I only read the first chapter or two though, as it was too sexual for me. I know that’s rich coming from me, but we all have our journeys, and mine was to erotic madness. As such, this isn’t really a nostalgic manga for me. Though, I kinda wish it was.

Okitsune-sama de Chu♥ is the story of Shimeta Moji, a high school student who wants to get into a romantic relationship with his childhood friend and alleged school idol Yuuko Ishikawa. Unfortunately for Shimeta, his face is no good, his head is bad, character is shady, he gets into perverted situations at least two times a day, and he has no redeeming features whatsoever to attract a girl. That sounds like I’m dunking on him, but the comic repeats these points several times. With nowhere else to turn, Shimeta goes to the local temple to pray for a divine intervention, and all he gets for his troubles is a spirit by the name of Osaki. A chibi fox… person sent by God, or Kami-sama, who promises to grant Shimeta’s wish for love if he cleanses this unnamed town of evil yo-kai wandering about.

As one might expect of evil spirits, they possess people, giving them supernatural abilities and screwing with their emotions. By people, I mean women, as this comic knows its target demographic. And by supernatural abilities, I mostly mean fantastical fetish shenanigans, more on that later.

To combat these spirits, Shimeta must transform to fight them, which is achieved by Osaki headbutting Shimeta, causing them to fuse into Supernatural Beauty Youko. A busty fox girl whose body Shitema is in full control of and has enhanced physical capabilities, allowing them to squirm their way to the backside of every girl and say the magic words to banish them. Ikutama Tarutama Tamatometama! Also, yes, one of the main characters is Yuuko, and the other is Youko. I don’t know how that flies, even in Japanese, so for the sanity of my readers, I’m going to refer to Youko as Yoko, which might be an alternate spelling.

As for the actual story of the manga, I would divide it into three parts. Initial shenanigans, set-up and cast expansion, and the climactic follow-through. Roughly the first third of Okitsune is spent going through these fetish of the week encounters, with every chapter following a strict formula. Shimeta is going through his life, a new girl shows up, he gets involved in something perverted, and this new girl does something weird. Then it turns out this new girl is being manipulated by an evil spirit, and Yoko sends them to the next dimension with an Ikutama Tarutama Tamatometama.

It is a sufficient formula, and the writer promptly uses it as a vessel for his myriad bizarre fantasies. Just the first three chapters feature breast enlargement bathtime shenanigans, mind control lingerie made by a caterpillar woman, and a naked 50-foot-tall loli who eats clothes with her hair. Starting out, it seems like a bottomless well of creative, and occasionally scummy, TF shenanigans. Okitsune knows neither the words shame nor restraint and is gloriously indulgent in what it does. It is confident, creative, and manages to bombard the reader with idea after idea to the point where I was wishing that I had read these comics when I was younger. Because this is the type of energetic TF story that I adore. …Sans all the naked child crap that I’ve come to just tolerate as part of being into this stuff.

Yet, as the story goes on and these bottle 25 to 35 word chapters keep coming, they stop feeling as eccentric or unique. Not bad, yet not really contributing much to the story beyond another fetish and archetype. This is partially due to how these girls are often disposed of after the initial chapter, rather than being added to a rotating roster. It makes it feel like less of a series and that can make the comic less engaging when bundled together in a volume.

This lasts until the end of the second of four volumes, when the second part— set-up and cast expansion— starts and the comic becomes more serialized. An antagonist is introduced, there is a status quo change at school, new characters stick around for more than one chapter, the works. It seems as if the writer finally decided on a story to tell, rather than getting down with his personal perversions. …Except not really.

New characters who seem like they might join the ensemble vanish in the next chapter. New concepts like an alternate form of Yoko are tested and dropped. And there are still plenty of episodic chapters thrown in that… do offer something new, but never add anything permanent. There’s nothing wrong with the rural training or pretty ‘boy’ chapters, other than their lack of purpose or context in a larger story. They can be skipped without losing any part of the overarching story.

Shimeta is a character who, by design, cannot grow. The yo-kai premise does not confer any new power to the Yoko form, so there is nothing truly gained by defeating them. And the antagonist, Yukino Tomoe, is not particularly good at her job, mostly being relegated to a background element and the owner of Himeko Sakurabashi, the robot maid who falls in love with Shimeta. There is a clear effort here to do something more, yet the story lacks the focus or commitment to really explore much. …Until we get to the last nine or so chapters, when things start picking up!

In the final third of the story, the supporting cast start interacting more, their personalities clashing as they compete and the story pursues more interesting avenues. There’s a sports competition between a nun girl with an army of spirits at her disposal and robot maid Himeko, this time equipped with a jetpack. While the next chapter sees Shimeta assume the Yoko form for longer and go on a date with Yuuko where they run into a bunch of other minor characters from the series. And, finally, last but certainly not least, we have the first and final story arc of this series!

Envious of Yoko’s skills, Yuuko goes to a shrine to pray for power, where she meets up with a rival animal spirit named Iku, who promises to give Yuuko power… but with a catch. In the second half of the series, it is established that Yuuko carries the soul of a god within her, making her a regular target to be saved. Iku, naturally, knows this, and uses Yuuko’s trust to take control of her body, molding her into someone else. Someone dark, twisted, and sinister beyond comparison. The doggy dominatrix Queen Pomera!

**God, I LOVE it when eromangaka just stop giving a shit!**

Queen Pomera is brutal, aggressive, vulgar and looks like someone’s Klonoa fetish OC. Not Sonic OC, Klonoa OC. The real shit! She is the first threat to truly give Yoko trouble in the entire series, not only taking Yuuko hostage as this evil influence gains greater control of her body, but using her seductive powers to enslave others. Initially, I thought that the penis was a little much at first, yet the more I saw her the more I realized it really puts her design together. It shows how aggressive and shameless she is more than her leathery limbs. It is the source of her power and has its own name— the magical chinpou, which I just think is adorable. And… let’s just say she uses it in a way that left me beside myself with laughter.

When she starts showing up, the comic enters its stride— except for chapter 27, which just feels like the writer was shoving in his pig (cop) fetish in before the finale. Tensions are high, things start changing, all the warriors come back (or about half of them, which is still a lot), and the story simply has a drive it just lacked before this. As for the ending itself… It doesn’t nail it— the chapter title got my hopes up in the worst way— but it’s also fine at worst.

Oh, and I should address how the story functions as a TSF story, and the answer is… not all that much, really. While Shimeta does transform into a supernatural beauty, he is not really interested in using it for his own perverted desires. He is a one girl kinda guy and after some initial shock and discomfort, gets pretty comfortable with this form, and whips it out whenever he’s in danger. There is some dual identity stuff with Shimeta and Yoko being seen as different people by other characters, but because Shimeta only comes out to fight, it never goes too deeply. There’s no boy/girl Ranma balance to maintain. No lust or discomfort with their femme form. And not even much in the way of mind melding despite Shimeta’s fusing. If anything, Osaki reserves tormenting him for when they aren’t fused. Or in other words, Okitsune does not really succeed as a TSF comic.

However, the comic definitely makes up for this lack of TSF with general TF shenanigans. The comic goes pretty hard with it from chapter one, and when you think it’s moved on to less fantastical routes, it throws around an inflation TF, then cloning, then invisible, with a lot of personality changes throughout. I’d say it is a good TF comic, and not really a good TSF comic. It might not always be to my preference, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t appreciate the heck outta it.

Next, let’s talk about the artwork! Maybe this is just latent impressionable nostalgia, but I love the style that Sumino Yuji brought to this comic. It’s ultimately a sex comedy action story released in the early 2000s that goes for a more deformed, blobbish, and generally cartoon style. While characters have generally human proportions, hands and feet can be big and exaggerated, and expressions do wonders to sell the emotion and tone of any given scene and make characters endearing through visuals alone. While I’m pretty sure that this is the author’s debut work, part of me finds that hard to believe considering how strong the art is here. It all looks clean, professional, has a good flow and energy to it, it doles out new character designs at a rapid pace, and effortlessly shifts between the deformed and the semi-realistic.

Actually, I found myself surprisingly attached to the designs of the characters. I think Yuuko is a surprisingly distinctive heroine due to how her green hair is presented in black and white. With her ends being shaded black while roots look blonde. It is an unconventional approach that looks like she’s growing out of a dye job, helps make her distinct from all the other girls and… I think it just looks cool in general. Most of the supporting cast have at least something cute or endearing about them and the way they look, barring certain one-off girls who are just… a girl with black hair and a spiffy outfit. But my favorite design (after Queen Pomera) of them all is easily Yoko.

Yoko’s design is both simple and extravagant. She’s got a tight underbust top that’s more bra than shirt. A skimpy leather skirt so short it’s always flashing something. A thick white belt just to bring attention to the waist and hips. Fat stylish all-American sneakers straight from Thailand, ‘cos that’s what was poppin’ in the early aughts. Spiritual beads, I think they’re called nenju, for that hometown flavor. Fox girl ears and blonde hair that goes past the ass and down to the knees. Like Queen Pomera, she looks like someone’s fetish OC, because she is, and I love it.

Just based on this comic, I can tell that Sumino Yuji is a strong artist, and even twenty years later, with the man at the ripe age of 54, he’s still making more erotic comics! I would love to say that I’ll check them out, particularly his other TSF works, TS Majo Rie x Norun and Minori Scandal. Unfortunately, neither have been fully translated into English meaning I can’t cover them… unless they miraculously receive a translation.

If I had to describe my thoughts on Okitsune in a succinct way— which is kind of my job here, I would say that it’s great… except for when it’s repetitive. The comic is a marvelous vessel of ideas, with every chapter offering at least something fun, interesting, or endearingly zany. The series is impressively competent in its execution and carries with it both a strong ambition and a love for what concepts it is bringing to life. However, at the end of volume three, in a post-volume skit, a character says that Sumino Yuji only had three ideas when he started this comic. While he definitely found more, it’s evident that he struggled to give them the right form and didn’t know where to go with the whole serialized story thing until a good year into its publication.

I wish that I could justify going through the story chapter by chapter, as I am glossing over a lot of really great stuff, but I cannot justify that approach for a 30 chapter comic. So take this as a call to check this comic out for yourself if it perked up your interest. It’s messy, but the good kind of messy.

TSF Showcase 2024-09
Transjitter Ibitsu na Karada by Jirou Saku

This TSF Showcase is an indirect request from Natalie.TF reader Skillet. By that, I meant Skillet requested that I check out an ongoing female to male TSF story, We Are Former Girls by Saku Jirou. I read the first few chapters of it, liked it, and added it to the informal folder of onging titles I should cover eventually. However, in looking at Jirou Saku’s past works I saw that they worked on another TSF series. A series that is conceptually similar yet wildly different from We Are Former Girls. Whether that difference is good will come up to personal preferences, but, well, let’s just say it’s my kind of shit!

Transjitter is a short-lived manga series that was canceled 6 chapters into its run, and from the outset… I can see why. Both due to the subject matter and tone of the work, and where it was published. The series debuted in issue four of Young King Bull, a magazine with covers like this, which indicates that something with limited mainstream appeal would not really work in this comic. If anything, the fact it was ever greenlit at all is surprising to me..

The series follows Shunichi Ikeya, or just Shun, a gay biracial high school boy who lost his parents at a young age and currently lives with his uncle. Needless to say, he is a rather depressed young man, seen as an outsider, unable to live a ‘normal’ life in a country that has rigid social values, and smack dab in the middle of adolescence. The only real bright spots in his life are his childhood friend, Yuka Yashiro, a comparatively cheery and easygoing girl who tries to brighten up Shun’s life. And the handsome transfer student, Koji Yamagashi, who Shun has a crush on. With this cocktail of misery established, Shun overhears Koji confessing to Yuka, and is immediately heartbroken.

From a flashback earlier it is revealed that something similar happened back in middle school, and while it did not ruin Shun and Yuka’s relationship, it led him to view her with more… animosity. Back in middle school, Yuka confessed to Shun, but because he’s gay, he was unable to reciprocate her feelings. And shortly after this Yuka was confessed to by Shun’s unnamed senpai, who he had developed a crush on. Every time Shun had someone he was attracted to, they wound up confessing to his best friend instead of him. This, in conjunction with everything else in his life, leaves him bitterly punching a wall that night, wishing that things could be different, and he wasn’t like this. …Okay, more specifically, Shun wishes that he could be a girl so he could be with Koji, because the comic only has so many pages to work with and needs to establish a lot of things in chapter one..

The next morning, Shun wakes up to see that… he got his wish. He developed a spontaneous sex transformation disease, or as this comic calls it, isomerization. The narration provides details on this condition, how it is irreversible beyond gender transition, can lead to nausea, and how some patients experience ‘mental illness’ after this sudden change. Which… is probably just a mistranslation. People don’t just ‘develop’ mental illness. They develop trauma, dysphoria, and so forth, but I digress.

When faced with his new female body staring back at him in the mirror, Shun violently vomits into the sink in a highly effective subversion of the usual reaction, but not an unrealistic one. Despite all the problems with his life, Shun is ultimately someone trying to understand himself and one of the few things that make sense is… his body. His body was replaced with something he did not find attractive, that he does not fully understand, and that isn’t his. His very identity was thrown into question, and the shock of this change leaves him wired, angry, and above all else… disgusted.

Shun then storms off into the shower, forcing himself to confront this new reality on a sensory level, staring back at himself in the shower mirror, before reaching a breaking point. A point where the fear, hatred, and disdain over his situation, fueled by the disorientation of a full-body transformation, overtake him. He reaches out of the shower, pulls out a razor blade and… the perspective shifts.

The comic then shows a young man entering Shun’s house, chiding him for skipping school. They head to the bathroom, where the shower is still running, and there they find Shun, his body covered in cuts adorning his arms, legs, and abdomen, but most of all, his breasts. It is a truly shocking bit of imagery, showcasing a darkness and violence that speaks volumes of the author’s intent with this series. It’s visceral, it’s raw, and it gloriously captures a sense of pain and hatred that comes with being in a body that is not one’s own. I’d show it, but I don’t want to throw super disturbing imagery at people.

…And that’s just chapter one! It’s freaking dense, and I guess that’s my only real criticism with it. It has a lot it wants to pack into 34 pages and there are points where things feel a bit too condensed. But I also can’t imagine what the creator could do better beyond changing a few bits of dialogue to be a bit more broad or specific. Which could always be due to an imperfect translation.

Chapter two features the first or many instances of parallel storytelling by focusing on Yuka. She underwent her own isomerization, becoming a tall and muscular man, so different that even her parents don’t recognize her. While her parents are left heartbroken by this, Yuka tries not to let the sorrow get to her. She does feel regret and sadness over what she gained and lost, yet tries to stay above it all, and reassures herself that she might have a chance with Shun now. She goes to school immediately after being discharged from the hospital, and is met with about as warm of a reception as one could ask for. A lot of nosy questions, yet support from some of her peers. It goes well, until she is walking home, when she is approached by Koji.

At the start of the chapter, it’s revealed that Yuka rejected Koji after his confession, still holding out her heart for Shun. Despite this, Koji is still interested in her, and has trouble reconciling that Yuka’s really who she says she is. He’s struggling to accept that someone he knew could change so much physically, while retaining so many little traits. It goes against his adolescent world views and it’s all made more complicated by the fact he’s still attracted to Yuka. Everything he liked about her as a girl is still there, her smile, her laugh, and he doesn’t know how to process that.

It’s all a very… human reaction to something like this, and I actually really like the execution. Koji is not angry at Yuka as much as he is angry at himself. He’s venting his frustrations and inability to understand, looking for answers to something beyond the simplistic world he was brought into. He doesn’t say anything overtly hateful or phobic, and from the tears rolling down his face, he’s clearly overwhelmed by emotions he does not know how to handle. Still, he goes a bit too far when bringing up Shun, and gets slapped in the face.

Filled with anger over how that conversation went, Yuka then runs over to Shun’s house, opening up the door with her spare key, and we see the end of chapter one play out from her perspective. Traversing down the dark halls, filled with fear over how Shun will react, only to find him wet, naked, covered in cuts, and with a female form. She struggles to process the sight, process that this person before her is Shun, and with both still in shock, the chapter ends.

Chapter three picks up at the hospital, where Shun has received stitches for his deep cuts, including the ones on his nipples. Yet rather than see these two react to each other’s bodies, the perspective shifts again, this time back to school with Koji. He’s still riled up over Yuka’s isomerization and loses it when two students chat about how Yuka and Shun might be hooking up, doing something in secret. Unlike last time, this is a bit overkill for Koji, getting physical with the two rumor spitting guys when they were just talking shit.

Still, another student, Yokoi, sees that Koji is hurting and tries to comfort him, letting him voice his frustrations over a cold drink, and working through his emotions. How he felt mortified by Yuka’s change, how he feels that he is not a “good person” for the way he acted around her, and how he wants to properly talk things through with both of them. Yokoi decides to help him out by searching for the hospital Shun is staying at— by going with her gut and guessing— where she wanders in at the height of an argument.

Shun is furious at Yuka, how calm she is about this, how she acts like she knows and understands him, and how she’s acting like this isomerization can bring them together. Or, at least, that’s how he’s choosing to view the situation. Rather than go off on Shun though, Yuka grits her teeth and tries to explain that she doesn’t like this either and just wants to help Shun. Yuka reaches her hand out to him. IN turn, Shun says that they shouldn’t be friends anymore.

It’s a deeply cruel reaction to anyone who wants to help someone in their time of need, and even Yokoi, who was eavesdropping, points this out. However, Yuka is less inclined to shame Shun, saying that he is still himself, that this is probably harder for him than it is for her, and that even after having her support rejected… she’s fine. That she will bear the frustration and abuse if it means protecting those she cares about.

Chapter four sees Shun return to school after his isomerization. He wants to just push it off until next semester, but schools do have mandatory attendance numbers, so he needs to go back. But he refuses to do so as a girl. With a face mask and sarashi— because chest binders don’t exist in Japan— he heads to school, pretending to have a sore throat and relying on Yuka and Koji to cover for him. It lasts for a few periods, but when it comes time for PE, runs into… Fukawa and Saborou. The worst guys.

They look down at Shun like wolves gazing at a wounded rabbit, identify him as the gay kid, and imply they have a history with him. With Shun overpowered, he is taken into the men’s room, these thugs relish this experience, taking off Shun’s mask and slowly unbuttoning his shirt while his mouth is blocked. He cries and murmurs, wishing to hide his secret, only to be exposed. The thugs rejoice at this and proceed to… rape him.

Okay, more specifically they tear off his sarashi and fondle his stitched-up breasts before taking a finger into his vagina, “deflowering” him as he screams in horror. Koji rushes across the school as he hears this, and is met with the sight of Shun, sitting on the floor, hands covering his face, his clothes in tatters, the two thugs looking over him.

Before talking about chapter five, I want to pause and talk about Fukawa and Saborou (I’m not actually sure which is which, but it doesn’t really matter). It is tempting to outright dismiss them as monsters in the shape of humans whose behavior has no place in any remotely decent society. Because they are and it doesn’t. We don’t learn much about why they are like this, but reading through this comic, I couldn’t help but see them as more… representative characters.

They are straight men who view it as their societal right to harm those who go against their hegemonic ideals. With Shun, they encountered something that goes against their worldview, something that they perceive should not exist. So, they proceed to go about making things right. By defiling it, using it to make themselves feel better, feel more powerful, and if this results in the death of their target, then good. Society has been purified. I’m tempted to say that this is saying something about the culture it exists within, except I know enough to know I know precious little about real Japanese culture. But this idea is generally present across… most countries in the world, as most countries still discriminate against queer people.

Tangent aside, the first part of chapter five sees both Yuka and Koji storm into the bathroom to beat up these thugs in an impressively tense fight scene for a non-action series. Hits hit hard, the characters get properly beaten up, and everything feels both gross and uncomfortable in the good way. However, a teacher eventually comes to put an end to the fighting and interviews Yuka and Koji about the event. Afterwards they share a moment, with Koji surprised that Yuka tried to defend him in the interview, and promising to protect Shun going forward. …Despite getting his ass beaten before he could land a single hit. Still, it’s a nice gesture.

Meanwhile, Shun gets patched up in the nurse’s office, and before he can fall into despair over getting people he cares about hurt, Yokoi is there to tell him… no. She says that none of this is his fault, the only people to blame are the rapists in a display of honest emotion that leaves Shun speechless. However, this does not solve his problems and on the car ride home, his uncle encourages Shun to transfer to a new school, and… he probably should. Shun is a target, has an unenviable reputation at school, and if he is going to need to live like this, he might as well start fresh. …Even if it means giving up the two people he cares about most in this world.

This idea sticks with Shun as he arrives home and nestles up in his bed, where he has a panic attack as he re-experiences what Fukawa and his friend did to him. …And it is one of the best depictions of a panic attack I have ever seen. The gritting teeth, the gasping for air, the hacking and coughing as Shun tries to process this horrible event. The way he clutches his clothes, tightly bounding it to his chest as he tries to protect his body, to hide it away. The way tears uglily drip down his face, and how he embraces a pillow as he tries to free himself of this horrible concoction of fear, anger, and confusion. I don’t want to compare myself to Shun as I never had anything 20% as bad as rape happen to me. But as someone who had… well over 50 panic attacks in her life, yeah, this wonderfully captures the feeling. The artist’s portrayal here is spot on.

Chapter six sees Yuka visit Shun yet again, wanting to check in and care for him after everything he’s been through. Shun’s too weary to reject, but as he walks away, Yuka notices blood dripping from his shorts. Faced with this realization, that Shun is on his period, Yuka proceeds to help him through it with an understated, quiet, yet heavy series of scenes. Yuka tries to be supportive, getting Shun tampons and teaching him how to use them, yet he is not emotionally available enough to do much more than sulk until it is time to put them on. Taking off his male underwear, putting on a pair of panties, and then attaching a tampon pad. He looks down at himself, at his crotch coated with only a small bit of cloth, his penis nowhere to be seen, and as he looks into the mirror, he breaks down and cries.

It’s powerful, slow, unceremonious, and heavy stuff. A depiction of something normal and mundane, yet carries with it a crushing weight that only goes to further press Shun’s resolve from shards into fine fragments. The series has a lot of small moments like these, and it’s honestly a bit wild how good they are.

…Then Fukawa and Saborou come back, finding Yuka as she is walking home, and proceeds to beat her ass underneath the local bridge. We learn that they were expelled from school— as they should be— and they proceed to have another fight, punctuated by a brief flashback to Yuka’s childhood. One showing that she has always been someone to hide her sorrow and pain to others, and the only one who could see behind her facade, the only one she could be fully honest around, was Shun. It’s nice character/relationship building, though… the comic only has a few pages left.

The comic finally ends with two scenes. One showing a brief, innocuous, yet heartfelt conversation between Shun and Koji, where Koji affirms how much he cares for Shun, urging him to eat and that, no matter what, he will protect him. And another showing Yuka, bruised and bloodied from her fight, staring up at the night’s sky, remarking that her hand, with bloodied knuckles, is no longer the hand of a girl.

There’s no resolution, no closure, and no idea where the characters will go from here. Will Shun go to a new school and say goodbye to two people who will stand up for him and protect him no matter what? Will Yuka continue to push herself into this new aggressive role, losing sight or something she once intrinsically possessed? And will Koji reconcile his feelings for these two? Only the author can say, and while I would love to see all of these questions, and more, be answered… I’m also content with the beauty on display here.

Transjitter is the type of work that I love being able to platform in TSF Showcases. It’s raw, it’s passionate, and it manages to capture a perspective and dismal tone that is seldom used when tackling this genre. It is not a tale of abject misery for the sake of it. It is one of the physiological and physical strain a sudden transformation can bring, how it can change the way one both sees themselves and is seen by others. It is confident even as it tackles dismally dark subject matter on both a narrative and visual level. It is the type of work that I both love to experience and aspire to create myself.

Also, I should probably take a moment to praise the artwork. I’m not sure what the best terminology is to describe Jirou Saku’s style here, but it draws a fine line between something more grounded and realistic, while still distinctly feeling like manga. And pretty much every element of the artwork impressed me at some point. The paneling can be incredibly effective at conveying a tone. The shifting angles and detailed anatomy add a lot of weight to the more mundane setting. While the expressions manage to achieve a sense of heightened reality. More overt than something truly realistic, while never feeling over the top. It all works wonderfully with the type of story Jirou Saku is trying to tell, and just from looking at their Pixiv… they’ve got plenty of range to boot!

Also, I want to apologize for the scans here. It looks like the group who did the translation, the still active group of genderbenderbb2, used Waifu2x or some similar upscaler on the artwork. As such, while it looks pretty good, you can also see the loss of detail with smaller lines or more detailed patterns. I can’t really blame them for this though. Sometimes when you have low res scans, it’s better than the alternative.

Heck, my buddy Vee Dee actually used Wiafu2x to improve chapter 6 of Mahou Shoujo La Valliere and chapter 1 of Tenbatsu Chara-o ~Onna o Kuimono ni Shita Tsumi de Kurogal Bitch-ka~, because the original translation releases looked like butt. Sure, their up-res attempts are still flawed, but I think it’s better than what the translation groups did.

TSF Showcase 2024-10
***Kizoku to Dorei no Irekawari ~Subete o Te ni Ireta Otoko~* [The Aristocrat and His Slave Switched Bodies ~The Man Who Got It All~] by Iwashita (Iwashita Shoten)**

I was hoping that some of the new hotness would be the right fit for a showcase, but I didn’t find the right spice. I wasn’t even feeling the newest Marialite stuff (Aqua Wing). So, instead, let me dig into my magic bag for something that I think is gross and neat! I was actually considering this for Natalie Rambles About TSF Comics back in 2022, except it didn’t really fit with what I was trying to showcase there. …But it’s good TSF Showcase fodder!

The Aristocrat and His Slave Switched Bodies ~The Man Who Got It All~ is… well, the entire plot is right there in the title. Set in a vague European middle ages setting, the story follows Lana Trau, the daughter of an aristocrat who has fallen on hard times after her father was accused of treason and went into exile. With no support and branded a traitor by association, Lana has subjected herself to slavery at the hands of Lord Ivasilo. With Ivasilo being an archetypical fat ugly bastard. He’s short, bald, has the face of a Japanese artist’s impression of a European dastard, and has no reservations about having this young woman of a questionable age act as his sexual servant.

He starts by dressing her in a bra and loin cloth, caressing her body and proclaiming that soon it will be his. But rather than take that in the normal direction, Ivasilo instead produces a magical contract capable of swapping their bodies. Lana naturally objects, but rather than force her into it, because he has used his aristocratic power to deem her an unperson, he tries to convince her that this will work out for her. Promising to change their ‘positions’ after 14 days, allowing her to take the money, and her true body, and leave Ivasilo either as he slave… or just destitute. It sounds like a weirdly beneficial offer considering the power imbalance of, well, slavery, but Ivasilo does a great job at making him seem like a lustful freak. He goes on about how, no matter how many women he had over his life, he always wanted to feel like it was to have sex as one. To be the one squirming in bed, the one to remain beautiful even in the throes of sex, that sort of thing.

Lana is still rightfully suspicious of this villain, this man with a face so warped he barely looks human. But with the encouragement of one of the mains who stripped her, she agrees to the contract. After all, who wouldn’t agree to 14 days of absolute torture if the end result was wealth and security for the rest of one’s life? A liar, that’s who!

After signing the contract, a ghostly exchange of souls occurs with a scene that really highlights many of Iwashita’s strengths as an artist. With the wide room shot, the suction and settling of souls into their new vessels, and the POV shot as Ivasilo settled into his new skin. His lust is overpowering, shameless, and is enough to bring Lana in Ivasilo to arousal. A trend that I have seen in a lot of TSF manga of this ilk, and am of several minds about. One, it is a means to get the plot to move forward and it’s not really meant to be delved into too deeply. Two, it is the result of a mind being in an unfamiliar body with parts the occupant does not know how to use, so the differences will be met with more extreme, possibly unconscious, actions. It’s just an idea, and it’s not like we can test it IRL. Three, this is a fear response mis-attributed as arousal.

Tangent aside, Ivasilo is still the boss here and uses his newfound body to come onto Lana, leading to the sex scene this story is built around. It’s about what one would expect. The MtF character is euphoric about this experience, forcing the FtM character to succumb to ‘her body’s desires’ while the MtF character relishes in the euphoria of a female body. However, what really makes it work is the decision to include alternating POV shots of this scene, showing it from both character’s perspectives as they longingly stare at their original bodies.

It does a lot to enhance the tension, drama, and sense of loss of this scene, while making great use of the body swap as… a body swap is inherently two stories, with two perspectives. A creator by no means needs to show both perspectives, though they should always consider them. Iwashita, however, does, and succeeds on pretty much all fronts. It’s not only an impressive use of perspective, but does a lot to engross the reader into the characters’ thought process..

…Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that Iwashita later made a less inventive version of this scene that removed the POV features. By comparison, it’s pretty lame.

After the sex scene, the story jumps ahead to 14 days later. Lana has been slowly transferring Ivasilo’s assets to her body, biding her time in this regretful predicament, but now it is finally time for their roles to switch. Lana confronts Ivasilo, orders him to swap bodies, but right as she gives the order a group of nights come into this manor, charging ‘Lord Ivasilo,’ meaning Lana, with staging a coup and framing Lord Trau. Lana panics at this news, trying to explain who she is, but it is no use. This was all planned by Ivasilo from the very start, and Lana’s fate is left unknown… but presumably she dies in some gorey manner.

In the end, Ivasilo, the aristocrat who switched bodies with his slave, got it all. He kept his wealth by sending it to his new self, took Lana’s fame and lineage, yet most importantly of all, her beauty. With the face of a demon possessing an angel, he swings open the door to his new family’s estate, declaring he is home.

Now, I would ask why Ivasilo went through the trouble of manipulating Lana like this, when he could have just… not. It’s seen as a writing faux pas— mostly by cowards— though you can just have characters lie and not spin these elaborate half truths. However, sociopaths get off on the suffering of others like this, and it does make Ivasilo seem like a true piece of shit. Which is kind of the appeal here. To see something vile steal something beautiful.

I could just end it there, but I need to talk about the art here! Iwashita is an artist who I’m alway happy to see when they post a new comic, as their work contains several strengths. There is an admirable level of ambition in how things are framed, regularly going above and beyond with certain settings or angles, while not being afraid to make things feel oppressive or unnerving. They also understand they are a TSF artist, and regularly splice in panels and angles that do an excellent job of capturing the TSF fantasy. With Aristocrat in particular benefitting from a lot of POV shots that… put the reader into the perspective of the character, capturing the uncanny yet exciting thrill of being in a body that is wildly different from one’s own.

There’s a lot of technical skill on display with this comic, and I also have to give major kudos for the elegant backgrounds. Most artists would settle for a plain blasé bedroom, but Iwashita set things in a lavish room that screams elegance from the carpet pattern to the trimmings along the walls. Sure, this can make the scene continuity kind of wonky if you really try to pay attention to where things are, not that I mind. I appreciate the ambition and effort alone.

…But my favorite thing about Iwashita’s artwork is that it’s kind of ugly. While being good with anatomy, Iwashita has a unique approach to faces, giving characters these tiny, beady eyes. While more ‘realistic’ than what you typically see in works with a more contemporary ‘anime’ art style, just looks off in nearly every scene. Sometimes it works, but whenever it comes to more extreme emotions, they look distinctly off. It’s like they’re possessed or something, even when they’re not! However, it also allows for a different kind of expressiveness and gives the resulting stories a more… twisted vibe. And if your brand as an artist is twisted shit, that’s not a defect, that’s a perk!

TSF Showcase 2024-11
Becoming Lindsay by CasualCraig69 & Someone From Internet Art

I need something to break this stretch of manga showcases. Something western, something obscure, something with a cool idea that I doubt anyone ever talked about in detail outside of some hentai site, if even that.

Becoming Lindsay is an illustrated caption series that was originally published during April and May 2020. It follows William Taylor, an unemployed shut-in who one day wakes up in the body of Lindsay Miller, a 23-year-old redhead with a loving husband named Mike. Having just suddenly wound up in another body, Will panics. Running away from Mike, leaving this home, hastily getting dressed, and collapsing when he has finally put some distance between himself and the new life. It’s not a good reaction, as it just adds suspicion and stress, but it is an understandable reaction. Especially for a ‘heterosexual’ guy who wakes up with a penis resting in their ass.

Despite this manic display, Will tries to get a bearing on his new identity, going through his belongings, piecing together whatever he can, and pursuing a sensible plan. Visit his home, hoping to find Lindsay in his body. To Will’s surprise, that isn’t the case, as the person inside Will’s original body is… just another Will.

I don’t think there’s a name for this type of ‘transformation,’ but there should be. It’s not a body swap, but rather a duplication of identities. They’re not a hivemind, so that label doesn’t work. It’s more like their soul was split in twain, duplicated, or some form of possession that doesn’t involve leaving one’s body. Maybe mind duplication, mental cloning, or something of that sort.

Anyway, Will in Lindsay— who I’m just going to call Will(Lindsay) because I’m trying to mainstream that Mind(Body) format— is able to convince his other self who he is. Hours pass, Will(Lindsay) decides to stay with his former body rather than masquerade as Lindsay. At first, they try to keep things amicable… but Will’s a bit of a pervert no matter the body. When faced with a slight nudge from one, the other nudges more, and before they know it, they’re lying in bed together.

Despite my phrasing, the pacing leading into this works pretty well. It’s building on a stressful day filled with underplayed erotic tension, and Will(Lindsay) is acutely aware of how the other Will is looking at him, and what he wants to do. For Will(Lindsay) the ensuing sex scene is described more as a vicarious masturbatory experience, achieved through the perspective-bending power of mirrors. They allow Will(Lindsay) to dissociate from their body, seeing their virgin male self have sex with a woman close to their ideal girl. This also naturally includes a few kinks— spanking, choking, positions— because they just help make sex scenes more interesting, and add at least the impression of character.

The second chapter picks up the morning after, seeing Will(Lindsay) wake up, have regrets about last night, masturbate with a showerhead, only for Default Will to get jumped by Mike. He tracked Lindsay with a family tracking app, tore up Will’s house, and inspires the two to lay low in a hotel while figuring things out. A fair enough plan… except Will’s broke and even a dirt cheap $45 hotel room (which is unbelievable, even for 2018). So they need cash, and what do you do when you have a hot girl body and need cash? Go camming!

Now, there’s a minor plot hole with this approach, as Lindsay’s body came with “$241 in cash,” “several credit cards,” and presumably an ATM card to take cash out of her joint checking account (they seem like the type). But whatever. The writer wanted to do a camgirl scene, and this fits the bill well enough.

The scene features a good bit of overlap from the first, with Will(Lindsay) once again vicariously living out a sexual fantasy in the body of a woman. First by the delay in the webcam feed, helping him dissociate with his current body, and then by inviting Will to join in, allowing them to share in another mutual sexual fantasy. At least until Default Will decides to dehumanize Will(Lindsay) for extra tokens. Something Will(Lindsay) understands… but he doesn’t feel good about it. Which I guess is there to show a growing divide building between Default Will and Will(Lindsay), seeing Will(Lindsay) behave more submissively, i.e., womanly, with Default Will viewing him as less of a part of himself.

Three days later, after dozens of hours of searching for a way out of this mess and several nights of camming, the Wills have enough money to buy stuff. Again, I’d ask how they could get the cash that quickly. I don’t even know the name of a cam site other than Only Fans, but I’d imagine sites like this take KYC pretty seriously and everything involving banking takes a day or two. But that’s not the point. The point is that after living in squalor, Default Will and Will(Lindsay) head out to get clothes, a better webcam, and some other investments for their line of work.

This takes the form of a collection of scenes that give the story more texture and flavor. Will(Lindsay) shopping for girl clothes as they pour through the ample options in order to find the right outfits, wanting someone as cute as Lindsay to look good, while Default Will just doesn’t get it. Will(Lindsay) doing the trite thing where he wanders into the men’s room to change, which I’ve never been a fan of. And a sex store visit where Will(Lindsay) gets sex toy tips from a promiscuous blue-haired lesbian— a staple of the TSF genre. …I’m not actually kidding, I’ve seen this in at least three other TSF stories (first that comes to mind is Cellular Shift). It’s weird.

This blue-haired lesbian, Ivy, immediately comes onto Will(Lindsay), even letting him turn up her vibrating egg. This naturally leads into a sex scene back at the hotel, which Will(Lindsay) enjoys quite a bit more than the aggressive and demeaning things Default Will put him through. I’d make some comment about this pushing Will(Lindsay) in some further direction, but I’m not sure if it does. I mean, I know the appeal here is the fantasy of the, presumably male, reader being in Will(Lindsay)’s situation, or possibly being in Ivy’s situation, but I’m trying to take this narrative more seriously.

I guess it shows Will(Lindsay) being more sexually adventurous, seeing new people, and learning more on how to be a lover, but Ivy’s entire character is… kind of superfluous, as she gets thrown away a short while later. So her biggest contribution is bringing up how Lindsay is a Gemini— specifically by mentioning a necklace that the artist never included in any of the illustrations. Which is kind of a major oversight, as Lindsay being a Gemini is the crux of the rest of the story.

Chapter four begins by throwing away blue-haired lesbian girlfriend in favor of the real plot of the story. Something that Will(Lindsay) could have picked up if he wasn’t in such a rush in the morning, but it probably wouldn’t have made the story any better. Following a confrontation with Mike, Lindsay’s husband, Will(Lindsay) is given a note… from the person who was last in Lindsay’s body.

The note explains that Lindsay’s body has a strange ability. During the sign of the Gemini— May 21 to June 21— if the person in Lindsay’s body has unprotected sex with a male Gemini, the soul transfer occurs. The soul within Lindsay’s body is transferred into the body of the man who ejaculated inside of it. The soul of this male Gemini is presumably locked within its own body, or just erased. With Lindsay’s body empty, it is then filled with a copy of a soul from a nearby ‘compatible Gemini.’ And no, this cannot be done with the same people more than once, so all that sex Will(Lindsay) had with Default Will does not count.

Now, this is why I wanted to showcase this story because… the hell is this? This means that Lindsay is a vessel that has erased and replaced souls, forever trapping them within their own bodies, or sending them to Hell! This means that the real Lindsay had sex with another Gemini… and then became him, forever locking her out of her own body, who has presumably fucked off and traded hands. …Well, she turns 24 during this story, and I don’t know when she started having sex, but this happened at least four times! Hell, maybe ten people ditched her body in the same month! I don’t know, and I don’t wanna know!

This is not some widely utilized or circulated possession concept. This is some off the dome OG shit that makes Lindsay’s body a tool for prolonging one’s life, and stealing the lives of others! She is a soul multiplication device! And you know the best part? The story absolutely understands this!

Okay, but what’s the catch? Lindsay’s body has an incurable brain disease, possibly related to whatever magical brewhaha created her. So everybody has been trying to ditch this body so they could keep on double living, because what’s better than one life? Two lives! Sure, that other person isn’t you, you won’t feel or think the exact same thing. But you know who’s your best friend in the whole world? You. Also, the doctors estimate that Lindsay only has a year to live, so if Will(Lindsay) doesn’t want to die, he’s only got… two weeks!

The Wills try to avoid this cruel fate by setting up a game plan. They need a male Gemini willing to bust inside Will(Lindsay), preferably an unmarried, young, healthy, and wealthy one. They identify the likely avenues for wealthy young bachelors, but before beginning their search, Will(Lindsay) decides to have sex with Default Will. Partially to thank him for this help, partially to say goodbye to this body, as Will(Lindsay) has a winner’s mindset, and if you’re only going to be a girl for a few more days… you may as well.

Three days later, Will(Lindsay) hits up a bar for some eligible hosts for his bodyjacking soul, living the fantasy of being the hot girl in a lower end bar. He expressed some competence in dealing with the men who want him, trying to push them away without being a bitch, before listening to some wise coke enjoyers tell him to hit up La Fire. Presumably because El Fuego sounded too ethnic, and the rich hate ethnics.

At La Fire, Will(Lindsay) immediately lands a big one as he meets 28-year-old businessman Nick Tomlinson. Millionaire, mansion-owner, high-powered capitalist executive, Wikipedia page-haver, and most importantly Gemini-designated. He quickly begins using Will(Lindsay) for his own gains. Getting him drunk, moving his arms around while he isn’t looking, and hyping him up with dirty talk. Also Ivy shows up to throw a drink on Will(Lindsay) and leave the story. Nick then continues to schmooze Will(Lindsay), Will(Lindsay) continues to embrace the drunk girl within, and after a bout of road head in a supercar, Will(Lindsay) walks away with the guy’s number.

A lot of the encounter with Nick sees Will(Lindsay) go against his previous inhibitions as he pursues his ultimate goal. He hated giving head before, but now he does it with little hesitation. He was uncomfortable being embraced by men before, but he gets all handsy around Nick and does the same. He has succumbed to becoming Lindsay… because that is the only way to escape being Lindsay. Which I guess is kind of like a spin on the ‘you must fuck 100 guys to become a man again’ schtick I see in hentai. …And also (but not really) Nuts Hunter by Kurosaki Bunta. (Sorry, but when else am I going to talk about Kurosaki Bunta?)

Chapter six is mostly just the penultimate set-up. Will(Lindsay) realizes he’s on his period, meaning his creampie plans have been foiled. He goes out on a date with Nick as a fancy lady in an expensive dress. And Nick reveals himself as a sexually twisted bastard who gets off on hurting women. Which I’d imagine is true for most people with nine figures. Hell, it’s true for every hundred-millionaire I’ve met. …I’ve only met two, but that’s still something.

I’d write this off as just rightful punching up at the rich, but it’s more utilitarian than that. Will(Lindsay) needs to effectively kill someone to go on living, but the writer does not want Will(Lindsay) to seem like a thief or bad person, so two things need to happen. Will(Lindsay) needs to go through a trial by fire in order to ‘deserve’ the prize body he aspires to. And Nick needs to seem like a scumbag who ‘deserves’ to lose his body by abusing his power, without being too overt.

Anyway, the last chapter is all killer, no filler, and begins by hammering home the latter point by having Nick bound, gag, and blind Will(Lindsay) as he is lured down into Nick’s illustrious sex dungeon. Narratively, it is a final boss battle that tests the protagonist’s resolve, but being real, it’s just a bunch of mid-level kink fetishes sandwiched together. Walking on all fours, whipping, Sybian™ Fucking Machines, rope hanging shenanigans, the works. Stuff that I’m apathetic toward, but I can see people enjoying both ends of the fantasy.

For enduring this sexual gauntlet Will(Lindsay) is rewarded with a new body, his soul transferring as Nick cums, leaving Lindsay an empty husk. Will(Nick)’s plan worked out, and the story wraps up with a final page that, while a bit too light for my epilogue-loving tastes, wraps up the story on a mostly satisfying note. The Wills now have access to great deals of wealth and power, can live whatever life they want together, and some unfortunate soul is going to be splintered off into Lindsay’s body come morning. Will(Nick) gives a heartfelt goodbye to her, struggling to write the best note to convey the situation to whoever lands in her body, and leaves, hoping to cross paths one day.

…Except the odds of that are low, as Lindsay’s body is going to die in a year, and its brain might stop working right before then. Also… did the writer forget about Mike? Lindsay is still his wife, and they just leave her body in a hotel room. They leave Mike with preciously low odds of ever seeing Lindsay again. Which is just a shitty thing to do. Maybe don’t tell him the full story, but at least tell him she’s got an identity disorder (which is not untrue) and to care for her. It would give whoever winds up in her body some much needed support, and would help Mike cope with the loss of the woman he loved. Sure, it’s not Will’s story at that point, but… I don’t care.

Overall, I like Becoming Lindsay enough that I, one, remembered it almost four years after reading it and two, enjoyed it when revisiting it. The structure is very… sex-driven narrative, with every chapter ending in some manner of sex scene, but by making sex such a central narrative mechanic, it does not feel intrusive or unwanted. It has a unique spin that avoids the trappings of a straight body swap or possession story and benefits from the dynamic between its split protagonists. And when it comes to the actual writing, it’s pretty good, but not great. There are more than a few typos and formatting mistakes I noticed— mixing up words like bra and bar, forgetting periods of commas, and the majority of the script is written in tight punchy sentences.

Now, there are many benefits from this shorter sentence structure. It gives the story a greater sense of flow, can make things feel urgent, and makes the story more digestible in certain contexts. However, when overused, it can make the story feel very abrupt and bereft of personality. When writing, you want to balance prose with quick actions. Load up any grammar editor and it will urge you to aim for sentence variety.

The writer ends this comic by saying he wished to create “characters that felt real.” While I can see his attempts at doing so with certain details and actions, his punctual approach does rob the story of a few details. Sometimes as a writer you want to pick a character’s brain, see what they like, and throw in extraneous details to make them feel more real. Mentioning the food, clothes, music, or things they like to do, or even going on small tangents. They should be imagined as people from top to bottom, and a writer should be able to write several paragraphs about each main character. Backstory, personality, appearance, drives, skills, interests, all that shit that makes a cardboard box into a person. And I’d be hard pressed to do that with any of the characters here. Also, any writer who writes “we liked the same bands and both had the same favorite games” while providing no further details should need to donate $15 to a reputable charity.

…That being said, I think this was fine enough. Craig was clearly putting in some effort here, and I’ve paid money for erotica with way worse characterization than this. …But not worse font choices, because the readability of this font, Comic Neue, isn’t great. I don’t know why they went with gray text instead of plain black— it’s a standard for most writing for a good reason. This, combined with the changing font size of the pages, makes the visual design of this work a bit amateurish.

Though, I do like the artwork. While I love a colored picture with great shady as much as any sane person, I admire when artists stop at the line art stage like this. They capture the essence of the image, put their foundational skills on display, and move on. Someone From internet Art does a good job within these limitations, capturing the right details with most images, brushing aside the others, and emphasizing the tone of any given page. It’s good supplemental artwork, and the turnaround was probably pretty quick. Though, there are a few times it does not quite fit, like page three of chapter two, and, for whatever bastarding reason, the story was exported as 1280 by 768 artifact-riddled jpgs. Like this is 2009. At least it plays decently with Waifu2x…

Here is where I would point out what the creators of this work did since then, but “Some From Internet Art” is not a very SEO friendly name, and their socials have not been active since September 2023. While CasualCraig69 said he was working on a story that sounded like it could have potential… but has seemingly vanished outside of doing CYOAs on Reddit. I don’t quite get why some people stop creating like that, but then again I’ve been writing for the same website for 12 years. I’m the weird one here.

TSF Showcase 2024-12
Transformed Into A Busty Blonde [Kinpatsu x Kyonyuu ni Henshin de] by Ikuya Daikokudou

…Okay, I’ll be up front and say that this one just barely passes the bar for being TSF media, and I’m just featuring it here for three reasons. One, this comic is bonkers with extra mayo. Two, I don’t want to tackle any of the longer manga I have in my backlog until I’m done with the busy season at work. Three, while people are routinely producing quality TSF media, they tend to be in one of two groups: A longer running series that may take years to complete. And shorter-form media that I simply could not talk about for more than a few paragraphs. So instead you’re getting something from… 14 years ago? I guess that makes this another throwback…

Transformed into a Busty Blonde is a sex comedy about a boy genius with a crippling fetish for busty blondes and a loli genius who develops a drug that can turn her, or anyone, into a busty blonde. …I deliver weird synopsis pretty regularly, but that one sure packs a punch.

The series begins by establishing the bizarre schtick of the male protagonist, Daiki Higuchi. A teenage prodigy who has unparalleled concentration and academic ability so long as he regularly masturbates. And the only thing he can masturbate to is, of course, busty blondes. Immediately after establishing this, Daiki’s teacher confiscates his favorite copy of Playguy, and the kid undergoes masturbatory withdrawals so severe he gets sent to the infirmary.

There, he has a vision where he gets a blowjob from the Goddess of Blondes and awakens to see… that it wasn’t a dream, as there is a busty blonde sucking him off who begs to be his girlfriend. Daiki naturally agrees, as this is his lifelong sexual fantasy, and they make sweet consensual love. …Until right before the girl reveals her name, when she suddenly transforms into a loli, or chibi as the translation calls her.

Her name is Mio Koide, an entry in the veritable genre of legal loli geniuses, who developed a love of Daiki, as he is the only person her age who is her intellectual equal. She loves him so much that she devoted months of her life to developing a drug that could transform her into his ideal girl. A busty blonde. Except the formula requires orgone energy. A pseudoscientific concept that this story uses as a proxy for ‘sexual energy,’ i.e. semen. But not just a regular old Dollar General jar of the stuff. It needs to be hot and viscous! So she raped Daiki to become a busty blonde… except the transformation didn’t last enough and Mio got exposed before she could get creamed.

This leaves Mio distraught, humiliated, and sexually frustrated, so she does what any sane mad scientist would do. Make a 3D printed mold of Daiki’s penis and attach it to a fucking machine. Like she’s ‘blight on the trans community’ Ray Blanchard, or the sick-as-hell perverts he met only to spread sick lies about them. This sequence is… kind of incredible for how brazen and shameless it is, while being filled with a bunch of visual gags to hammer home that this is meant to be silly. However, this does raise a topic I really ought to address, so let’s take a break to talk about the character.

Mio is a character with a small, flat, and generally… undeveloped form. I could highlight how tens of millions of adult working age (not senior) women are shorter than 5 feet tall. How people can age in dramatically different ways and rates depending on their biology, hormones, diet, lifestyle, and environment. There are 21-year-old girls who look 12, and 14-year-old men who look like they’re in their 30s. It’s absurd how much weight people simultaneously put into age and the idea that age can be cleanly visualized, when that is just not how reality works. People cannot always clearly be put into categories, and any attempt to force them into these roles will just make things worse for everybody.

…However, it’s also abundantly clear that Daikokudou was just being a stinky old pervert lady with Koide. She’s designed to look like a child. Partially in order to make the contrast between her normal form and blondie form more extreme. But also to capture the lucrative market of The Lolicon Legion. And just looking at how Daikokudou depicts children in her other other works… yeah, they knew what they were doing, and it’s part of their brand. So, uh, alternative argument time!

This comic is drawn like a damn cartoon half the time, which creates a dissonance between what would be reprehensible acts and the content of the story. I hate that I always conflate the two like this but… it is like how cartoon violence is far different than actual real life violence. Watching cartoon funny animals blow each other up with bombs and drop anvils on top of each other is meant to be funny and goofy, and so is most of this. Mind you, there are definitely points where comedy/absurdity/farce are not the goal, and there is always the matter of taste to consider. Personally, I tolerate it no problem, but that’s what because I’ve been tolerating stuff like this for 16 years.

Then there’s her personality, which… just makes her seem even more immature. She is incredibly talented and infinitely capable in the way cartoon scientists are. She has a strong sense of devotion and a simplistic view of relationships, due in part to the isolated childhood of a prodigy. However, I do like her for two core reasons. One, she is such a hyperactive little gremlin and it is a joy to watch her do stuff. …Not do stuff in the sexual way. In the more general way. And two, she actually undergoes a fair bit of development across the series, becoming more confident and comfortable around Daiki in a way that feels… surprisingly natural. But more on that in the later chapters.

Meanwhile, Daiki is a bit of an odd hentai protagonist, as he is academically intelligent, emotionally intelligent, a pretty good guy, and a strong believer in romance. He’s not a jerk. He wants sex to be rewarding for both partners. His hyper fixated fetish is just some quirk he deals with and manages effectively. And his fetish is what drives him to succeed academically which… is one hecking weird neurodivergence, I’ll say that much. …Though I do find the extent of his fixation and how it ties in with his Super High School Level Student abilities to be a bit… strange. My pet theory is that he’s like the Heisei-era Godzilla and has two brains. One in his skull, like your garden variety mammal, another in his lower abdomen, and when he masturbates, it makes the abdominal brain go wild with hormonal power. It’d make as much sense as anything else in this comic…

Going back to the plot, Daiki proves himself to be a classy fellow by visiting Mio the following day to walk her to school, as he did promise to be her girlfriend while Mio was transformed. Mio is reinvigorated by this and quickly devises a way to make the transformation drug even more powerful. And to do that, she needs to fill her asshole with Daiki’s cum so it stays in her system longer. Also known as suppository logic!

This leads to a sequence that really emphasizes the farcical nature that I referenced earlier. While the goal of this scene is for Daiki to cum in Mio’s little butthole, the comic has a lot of fun getting there. Mio keeps getting shifted into a super deformed gremlin-like critter when she emotes. Daiki starts holding onto Mio’s body and calling her his onahole as he swings her about up, down, and all around. They wind up reading Daiki’s Playguy magazine together, which is just plain old cute. Then when Daiki finally busts, Mio grows so much that the elementary school swimsuit she’s wearing needs to be cut with scissors to free her.

When they do finally have sex, there is a real sense of affection and appreciation from both parties. With Daiki offering Mio a lot of praise and encouragement, Mio being so overblown with joy that she rolls around and shouts in delight, and the two of them indulge in their shared perversions. It’s reflected in the art as well, which manages to remain both energetic and jovial throughout, neatly skirting around any ickier element to the act. Sadly though, this doesn’t make Mio a busty blonde forever, as she turns back to her usual size even after a four-hour-long fuck sesh.

This leads into chapter four, which is mostly noteworthy for being the threesome and netorare chapter. Specifically NTR and not cuckolding, because that term was ~~stolen~~ annexed by the alt-right and now cuck primarily means ‘White guy who failed to keep his White woman from the Black man.’ With ‘keep’ having multiple meanings.

After some collaboration from Daiki, Mio has further improved the busty blonde TF tonic, letting her transform into a blonde without any injection of ‘orgone energy.’ Because rules are for schmucks and that concept was already taken to its limit. Wanting to further test the drug, Mio presents it as tea and gives it to her sensei. I don’t think she actually has a name, but she’s a glasses MILF who views Mio as a way to make money and… also lives with her, I guess? Their relationship is not made very clear, and I like that. It keeps me wondering.

Anyway, Sensei drinks the transformation tea, turns into a bustier blonde than even Mio, and fueled by the secondary aphrodisiac effect of the transformation, proceeds to fuck Daiki. Mio gets bound up, Daiki is unable to resist a busty blonde MILF, and they have sex on top of Mio for good measure, with Sensei teasing her as she gets turned on from this display. After the initial orgone energy boost fades, Mio is able to escape by returning to her chibi size, where she channels her inner hedgehog and does a homing attack on Sensei. This incapacitates her, letting Mio suck the cum out of her vagina because that kinda girl.

This turns Mio back into her busty blonde form and the three proceed to apologize for that scenario before engaging in the aforementioned threesome, and making a Mio sandwich. All of which is sufficiently wild enough to be a spectacle, though it doesn’t really do much for the overall story. Which is fine. Sometimes you just need to go off on an indulgence. Not every work needs to be perfectly balanced.

Moving onto chapter five, we finally reach the TSF (Transformation of Sex Fantasy) part of this TF (Transformation Fantasy) story. It’s a hot school day, Daiki heads to Mio’s personal high school lab, finds a suspicious bottle of ‘barley tea’, and drinks it, turning him into a busty blonde! Though he is not as busty as the others, being typical by hentai standards and… actually he has auburn hair based on the cover. That’s not a blondie!

Possibly due to his lack of blonde-ness, Daiki does not immediately start masturbating after assuming this form and even after waiting an hour, the transformation does end like it should. It’s later explained that not only does the TF tea work on men, it lasts far longer on them due to the orgone energy in their system on account of their testicles. Which makes sense if you want it to, and is a good enough excuse for some TSF tomfoolery.

On that note, Daiki heads into the bathroom for his hourly masturbation session, goes into the boy’s room, and fumbles around before getting the hang of a female body. I actually find his exploration to be a bit novel, as he just winds up rubbing his clitoris, does not finger himself, and plays with his nipples over his breasts. I’ve seen countless TSF masturbation sequences, and while far from being truly unique, I appreciate it when stories at least take things in lateral directions like this. Daiki’s basically a pro masturbator, so it makes sense he would just jump head first for the erogenous zones and start giving them some sensual rubs.

Sadly, Daiki’s hands are not enough to satisfy him and he goes into heat, begging for cock in front of minor friend character Motohashi. This naturally leads to a sex scene and… it’s the worst one in the entire comic. All pain, no love. Daiki gets his hymen stretched and torn up. He cries a bunch, narrates on how much this hurts, and just is unable to properly communicate with Motohashi. While Motohashi is… just self-absorbed. He keeps talking to Daiki as he is unable to respond, goes on about how important this experience is for him, and does not even really care about getting the name of the first ‘girl’ he had sex with. Yeah, Motohashi sucks. I wish this was just Mio and Sensei’s female masturbation tutorial instead. That’d be TSF as heck and it would keep the key element of most good non-horror sex scenes. Affection.

Chapter six, my favorite of the bunch, picks up the next day, with Daiki still in his female form and spending the night at Sensei’s place. …Where they have been up all night, playing around with Mio’s 3D printed fucking machine. I just need to stop and gawk at the absurdity of this. Daiki does not know how long he’ll be like this for, so he’s making use of his holes, and fucking himself with a perfect replica of his own penis. It reminds me of a story I heard years ago about a trans woman getting a mold of her penis before bottom surgery, and then using her own penis to fuck herself… but taken to the extreme. It’s a helluva way to start a chapter, but most of it is spent on Daiki and Mio going out on a girls’ day out— their first date!

Now, I’ve got to give Daiki chops for being such a good TSF protagonist. Not only is he willing to go out like this, he doesn’t even pull some bullcrap about not wanting to be girly, or wear dresses. He spent all night with a fucking machine. He knows what’s up. And the outfit he puts together is, well… just look at him!

He’s got his hair done up with a nice little curl, a fancy lady hat, a classy black and white dress and cropped cardigan that draws the eye to his great curves, high-heeled sandals, a spiffy purse, and a set of three fly necklaces. Dude looks like he invented clothes with drip like this! Hell, he makes Mio seem even more goblin-coded, as she goes out in nothing but flip-flops, jorts, and a shirt with ‘Natural’ and three hearts on it. I’d make a joke about how that means flat is love, actually, but that would mean ass is life and boobs are hometown. …Hold on, that might be truer than true…

Trading one tangent for another, the next page is my favorite in the entire comic, as it is just a collage of Daiki and Mio as they go out and have fun. Hitting up the carnival, batting cages, bowling alley, and crane games. One of the best things about comics is that moments like these can be captured with just a single frame. With writing, it’s far harder to paint a picture like this in a paragraph or less. With nearly every other medium, the costs of production mean even minor scenes have an obligation to do more. But here, you just need one image of these two eating takoyaki to sell a scene. I love it!

Once the two get to the karaoke parlor, Daiki kills it on the mic but Mio is more shy about performing. She confesses that she has lived a sheltered life, does not know how things like this work, and does not want to disappoint or bore Daiki. Daiki affirms her though that he is having fun with her, that he likes her, and promptly gives her a bit wet sloppy kiss on the cheek. It goes back to what I said about Daiki being such a positive, loving, and good dude. His reaction to Mio getting upset or doubting herself is to throw her into something he knows she’d enjoy. And, man or woman, Mio loves Daiki, and no matter what their bodies are like, they’ll find some way to make it work.

What follows is the obligatory sex scene. The first part is Mio using Daiki’s 3D printed penis mold to fuck him, using it as a strap-on, just without the strap. And the second part is Mio and Daiki embracing each other, Daiki telling Mio that he doesn’t need a “big breasted blonde lover” because he has her. It’s a sweet moment that makes this sex scene feel ‘deserved,’ and could have ended the story on a strong note.

Instead, the chapter ends with Daiki turning back to normal and the introduction of a new challenger when you least expect it. The All-American busty blonde bombshell, Millet! An exchange student who, right after being introduced, plants her whore lips on Daiki, claiming him as her man!

Chapter seven sees Yankee Thot Millet take things a step further. Hitting on Daiki during lunch and revealing her true power as the… Erotic Oriental Medicinist, Mistress of Hamon, and Super High School Level Acupuncturist. She is a master of pressure points, uses them to enhance sex, and demonstrates her appropriated wisdom by altering Daiki’s “cerebral neocortex.” With just one poke, Millet robs him of his intelligence and turns him into a slave of his body’s urges. Daiki, thinking only with his lower reptilian brain, tries to resist this most un-cuddly vixen, but her ways, charm, hair, and Caucasian Oppais are too much for him to handle, and he succumbs to her. Becoming a man who no longer knows what love is, and only knows lust!

Upon learning of this, Mio is crushed. Daiki brightened up her world and to see him frolic with this… harlot is too much for her to bear. The heroine is at her lowest and she is only saved by… Mr. Poopypants Stinkboy himself, Motohashi, who comes to her with the straight dope. He explains that Millet the Anti-Concubine has created a brainwashed reverse harem and that, despite whatever Mio thinks, Daiki only loves Mio. He was once obsessed with looks, yet after getting to know her, he realized that what was really important was sincerity. Someone he could view as an equal. And someone who… loved him for who he is.

With newfound resolve, Mio ventures to the field of battle, armed with her booba tea, and challenges Millet to a duel of sex and resolve. First woman who cums loses, and the winner takes Daiki. Millet the Haughty Hoe agrees to this challenge and, armed with aphrodisiac tea and pressure points respectively, they battle it out in bed. It’s experience versus passion. Love versus lust! Brains versus… well, they’re both hot so beauty doesn’t really work, but you get my point! Also, Mio grows a dick using her latest invention to try to make Millet cum, because there needed to be some futa content in this comic.

Mio puts in an admirable effort, channels all her love and passion… only to burst into a cascade of cum, leaving her dazed and canceling out her transformation. Millet the Maneater stands before her sexually fatigued foe and goes to Daiki, ready to claim him now and forever. …Only for Daiki to fight through his mental block and go to Mio, embracing her in his arms! Because when push comes to shove, love always triumphs over lust! And if it doesn’t, I guess your love wasn’t shit!

Chapter ten skips ahead six months later. Millet the Erotic Menace accepted the love of Diaki and Mio, and even used her powers to unlock the sealed chakra within Mio. Thereby turning her from a chibi into… a real-sized person! With boobs and everything! Daiki and Mio, having grown from their escapades, say goodbye to their high school. The place where Mio made her greatest invention, where their love was born, and where their wild adventures began. Yet rather than just clean up and leave for university, they have one last time together.

Daiki reveals he has conquered his fetish for busty blondes by getting an erection in front of Mio. Mio literally throws herself at him, grabbing and savoring his penis before the two have about as tender a time as two adults can on a tile floor. They shout for joy, roll around, and eagerly voice their love for each other, right through the sticky climax. It is a great ending that really makes all the insane escalation up until this point seem warranted.

…Also, there’s some weird elseworld story that is shoved in afterwards. It features Daiki and Mio as they are university students living together and having sex. But it cannot be canon because Mio is back to her former size in regards to her height, breast size, and… everything. That is not how humans work, so I think this was just included to appease the lolicons who felt gibbed by losing a cutie. At least it gave me a good panel for the header image…

Transformed Into A Busty Blonde is a rousing old time, and I’m surprised how well it’s held up in the six years since I first read it. The dynamic between Daiki and Mio is surprisingly sweet and effective. The comic relishes in its erotic absurdity from start to end, without ever being full-ass bonkers. The artwork is adorable, regularly deforming its characters into little moeblobs and featuring excellent expressions, without overusing them. And it always feels like it’s eager to move onto the next thing, without compromising the current scenario. Really, I don’t know what more I could ask for… other than more TSF.

Well, good thing Ikuya Daikokudou has a bit of a history as a TSF author. She’s actually written a few TSF Showcase candidates in her tenure as a mangaka. Such as Kyoukai no Nai Sekai, which sounds super interesting but apparently has some iffy execution. The meme-worthy Dokka Ichatta, about a schoolboy who lost his penis and became a girl. And Mirai wa Bokura no Ude no Naka, a story about a guy who can see and interact with his female self from another world.

Sadly, most of their more recent works snub the TSF trappings, and Daikokudou had gotten on the loli isekai train. Which… I get. Artists gotta eat, and the isekai market is still fertile.

TSF Showcase 2024-13
A Gender-Bent Maiden and a Confession Under a Starry Sky [Nyotaika no Musume to Hoshizora no Kokuhaku] by Poriuretan

Well, it’s time to end the first season of TSF Showcase of 2024! …Sadly it’s still my busy season at work, and I have other writing projects in the pipeline. So instead of ending things with a bang, I’m going to showcase another TSF artist I’ve been following for a few years, Poriuretan.

My first choice for a showcase candidate would obviously be the three-part Aoi Kemuri series, which follows a character as a TSF transformation just… destroys their life. It takes away their home, their family, their freedom, and decimates their sexuality after they are abducted into a sex slave compound. It’s amazing. And dark. And artistic! However, I already talked about it in Natalie Rambles About TSF Comics. So instead let’s talk about… the one where two lovers have sex under the stars! …Yeah, Poriuretan has some real range. That’s why I like ’em!

The comic begins by introducing Kaoru and Seiji, the only two members of their university’s astronomy club. A pair of close male friends who share a romantic love of the stars and the multitudinous mysteries it holds. Messing around in their club room, going out stargazing one night, and remarking on how, even though the stars seem static, unchanging, they have come and gone over millions of years. That change is inevitable. …Which leads to Kaoru, the more bookish and reserved of the pair, to turn into a girl in the next panel.

Yeah, the comic kind of skirts around the whole cause for this transformation. It was probably the same Rapid Onset Nyotaika Syndrome that Poriuretan, and many other mangaka, like to play around with, but it really doesn’t matter. All that does matter is that Kaoru is now a girl with a curvy figure, thick thighs, and messy shoulder-length hair. A veritable cutie if I’ve ever seen one, and one currently in the midst of acclimating to their new life. Dealing with their reduced upper body strength as they schlep equipment, only to drop it. Being scolded by their, comparably plain, mother for not being ladylike enough with their beauty routine or casual wear. Getting their first period and feeling like crap, while wanting to hide this fact from others.

It’s all a lot of little things, and they’re all pretty obvious changes, though I consider that to still be an important part of most TSF stories. Seeing people deal with the new requirements of the body they have been pushed into. The boons, the banes, the new standard they are upheld to, and how it impacts their everyday life. The reactions to this say a lot about the character and their values, and help make them feel more realized, which is always important in a short-form comic like this.

Naturally, this includes Kaoru’s relationship with Seiji. He’s kind to Kaoru, though he is more distant, giving him space rather than getting up into his face, and being less conversational, allowing awkward silences to build between them. He wants to be available for Kaoru, wants to be their friend, yet does not know what they’re comfortable with. Meanwhile, Kaoru tries to act like nothing’s changed… while knowing that their relationship is different and feeling different about Seiji.

The comic could just present this with Kaoru longingly thinking about him or merely sniffing the scarf he leaves in the clubroom. …Instead Kaoru gets aroused by their friend’s musk and masturbates. I could call this scene gratuitous, but it does show Kaoru becoming more indulgent in his body, open to their sexuality, and the execution of the scene is very… subdued. Kaoru only makes quiet moans, feels themself through plain underwear, and awkwardly lays themself on the couch. It’s grounded, reserved, fast, and lays the foundation for what is to come next.

Things then jump back to the opening splash page, with Kaoru staring out into the stars, by themself, wishing to go back to the old days. Where they and Seiji were just a pair of dudes with a shared love of astronomy. Or, at the very least, let them be with Seiji. On cue, Seiji then arrives, chiding Kaoru for going up here, at night, alone, as a girl. Kaoru tries to seem frustrated, but they appreciate the thought.

Once they are finally out stargazing, Seiji channels his inner romantic, voicing how much he wants to reach out to the sky and snatch the stars, even though it seems impossible. It touches a chord with Kaoru, mirroring their own impossible dichotomy, and they collapse, dropping a hot pot of coffee as they break out in tears. Seiji can sense the frustration in his friend and make a playful gesture to boost their mood, before kissing Kaoru on the lips.

Seiji apologizes, saying he does not want to just be friends, that he loves Kaoru. Faced with an acceptance they thought they would never have, Kaoru hugs him and contemplates what they want. If they really want to go through with this. To embrace the life of a woman even though they don’t know so much, and pursue love. Or fight against it and lose their first true friend. In the end, Kaoru chooses love.

The two then go to a… structure that looks like a gazebo, but with chest high walls and a built-in bench. I’m not sure what to call it. In this not private, and likely freezing, place, the two share their first time together in something too long, emotional, and deliberate to just call a sex scene. It is the two figuring out their comfort levels as they embrace each other and try to make each other feel good. They’re not sure what they’re trying to do, what their comfort levels are, or even what they like, and need to figure this out on the fly, all while having a back and forth.

Kaoru, wanting this to work out and not wanting to disappoint Seiji, pushes herself forward as she begins feeling more urges, easing herself into the role of a woman. Having herself embrace Seiji’s penis, going with her body’s urges, and asking Seiji to help her while she helps him. She fluctuates between being infatuated, frustrated, frazzled, and afraid as she pushes herself through this. While Seiji is more brazen about this, he (generally) asks for permission for most things. Communication like this is important to make a sex scene feel like two people making love, and this fits the bill about as well as I could expect from an erotic comic like this. Very effectively… before slightly losing the plot near the later fourth.

Rather than just ending on the climax though, Kaoru pauses to look Seiji in the eyes, saying that while her body changed, her feelings for him will never change. A romantic note to end on… that the story immediately follows up on, showing Akoru and Seiji, both notably older, revisiting their stargazing sight along with their young son. It’s a petty minor thing, yet I cannot help but adore small epilogues like this, as they make the story at least feel larger than it is, while leaving a lot open to one’s imagination.

This comic’s by far the sweetest thing Poriuretan has ever done, and probably one of the best showcases of their skills as an artist. Whenever I’m looking at something Poriuretan drew, I can tell it’s Poriuretan’s work. Faces emote in a unique and endearing way that captures their intense emotions while retaining humanoid proportions. Characters look like they have a more realistic weight, proportions, and texture to them, just from the way they stand, move, and how their skin and fat bends. They manage to draw a line with the cuteness and expressiveness of a more standard anime aesthetic and something a touch more real. More grounded. And for as much as I love the fantastical part of Trans-Sex Fantasy, sometimes this sort of thing is just what you want.

I also have to say that I love the choice to go with a winter aesthetic. Characters are covered in layers of deliberately detailed clothes that hang off them, emphasizing their forms. They keep going for hot drinks. And the isolated rural mountaintop they visit is given just enough detail to evoke a chilly, windy feeling. Where it’s not quite freezing, but it’s definitely cold.

All in all, I love this little manga, and I would love to end this by talking about the work Poriuretan is currently doing, a manga called Our TSF Story. …Unfortunately, I cannot find an official page where it’s hosted, and according to TSF information repository, ts-f.info, the comic was only available for purchase during a limited time period. …Which really sucks.

…Also, what did I just say before that? Did I stumble upon a Japanese TSF comic, game, and JAV review site… that also features the owner’s own original writing? …And the site design is way more professional looking than anything I ever whipped up? I did not expect to end this season like this… but now I know there are Japanese people doing what I’m trying to do with TSF Showcase. Cool!

TSF Showcase – Q1 2024 Compilation

TSF Showcase 2024-01
Osananajimi wa Onnanoko ni Naare [My Childhood Friend MUST Become a Girl!] by Morishita Mao

TSF Showcase 2024-02
Ellie Skinsuit by Imp Undernearth

TSF Showcase 2024-03
Fujoshi Trapped in a Seme’s Perfect Body by Seru and Jouvru

TSF Showcase 2024-04
Oto x Maho by Shirase Shuu and Suemitsu Dicca

TSF Showcase 2024-05
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Transjitter Ibitsu na Karada by Jirou Saku

TSF Showcase 2024-10
***Kizoku to Dorei no Irekawari ~Subete o Te ni Ireta Otoko~* [The Aristocrat and His Slave Switched Bodies ~The Man Who Got It All~] by Iwashita (Iwashita Shoten)**

TSF Showcase 2024-11
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TSF Showcase 2024-13
A Gender-Bent Maiden and a Confession Under a Starry Sky [Nyotaika no Musume to Hoshizora no Kokuhaku] by Poriuretan

Further Reading (and Shameless Plugging)

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TSF Showcase 2024-01Osananajimi wa Onnanoko ni Naare [My Childhood Friend MUST Become a Girl!] by Morishita Mao

TSF Showcase 2024-02Ellie Skinsuit by Imp Undernearth

TSF Showcase 2024-03Fujoshi Trapped in a Seme’s Perfect Body by Seru and Jouvru

TSF Showcase 2024-04Oto x Maho by Shirase Shuu and Suemitsu Dicca

TSF Showcase 2024-05Boku Tamasaburo by Ono Shinji (Yoshimura Tatsumasa)

TSF Showcase 2024-06JK-ka Refle [JK-ification Salon] (Ch 1, 2, 3, and 4) by Kouji

TSF Showcase 2024-07Bocchi de Shinda Ore ga Bishoujo Nurse ni Natta Hanashi [The Story of How I Died Alone and Became a Sexy Nurse] by Oden Ohgan (TuriSasu)

TSF Showcase 2024-08Okitsune-sama de Chu♥ by Sumino Yuji

TSF Showcase 2024-09Transjitter Ibitsu na Karada by Jirou Saku

TSF Showcase 2024-10Kizoku to Dorei no Irekawari ~Subete o Te ni Ireta Otoko~ [The Aristocrat and His Slave Switched Bodies ~The Man Who Got It All~] by Iwashita (Iwashita Shoten)

TSF Showcase 2024-11Becoming Lindsay by CasualCraig69 & Someone From Internet Art

TSF Showcase 2024-12Transformed Into A Busty Blonde [Kinpatsu x Kyonyuu ni Henshin de] by Ikuya Daikokudou

TSF Showcase 2024-13A Gender-Bent Maiden and a Confession Under a Starry Sky [Nyotaika no Musume to Hoshizora no Kokuhaku] by Poriuretan

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TSF Showcase 2024-01
Osananajimi wa Onnanoko ni Naare [My Childhood Friend MUST Become a Girl!] by Morishita Mao

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