By Ai Morinaga
184 pages, black and white
Published by ADV Manga
Like so many books on the market today, Your and My Secret relies on an initial gimmick to get the reader’s attention; in this case, it’s the old chestnut of “body swapping”. In the case of Your and My Secret, though, it’s not so much the basic idea that’s noteworthy, but what creator Ai Morinaga does with it.
Akira Uehara is a sweet, even-tempered, almost meek high school student. He’s bad at sports, he never asserts his personality, and seems to be content to fade into the background. Opposites apparently attract, though, because he’s fallen for Nanako Momoi, the girl that the rest of the school is afraid of. She’s loud, she’s tough, she’s uncultured… and now she and Akira are in each other’s bodies. Akira’s desperate to return to his own body, but why is it then that the rest of the world seems to think that the “new” Akira and Nanako are better with their new personalities?
What struck me the most about Your and My Secret, I think is that Morinaga refuses to take the easy way out of the story she’s written. Normally in a story like this we’ve got one of two possible situations: either the two discover how tough the other’s life is and how unsuited they are for it and thankfully switch back, or they discover “new sides” to themselves and love the switch. Morinaga complicates matters here by mixing and matching the two, letting Nanako love being a man, while Akira is still desperate to return to his original gender. Watching Nanako pursue her former best friend now that she’s a man is certainly a lot further than most writers would’ve taken the concept. It’s interesting that Nanako clearly sees this as an opportunity that she never had as a woman, ignoring attempts to categorize her sexuality. At the same time, Akira’s panic at his friend pursuing him in the body of Nanako is interesting because it’s such a contrast to Nanako full embracing of her new life as a man. Morinaga cleverly tells Your and My Secret from Akira’s perspective but still plants the question in the reader’s mind of, “Is this switch really such a bad thing?” and then gives strong cases for both a yes and no answer.
The art of Your and My Secret is for the most part pretty average. Morinaga shows that she’s got a good grasp of how to draw her characters. Probably the strongest part of Morinaga’s art is how she draws Nanako-in-Akira’s-body. Once the swap has taken place, he starts looking a little rougher and more traditionally masculine. Morinaga also cleans up Nanako in a similar way, but the contrast isn’t quite as strong as it is in Akira’s body—perhaps in reflection to how well Nanako takes being in Akira’s body. The one bit I didn’t like, artistically, was the “slapstick comedy” scenes with Nanako’s grandfather. I understand that those scenes are supposed to be funny and goofy, but the art in those parts just looks cluttered and rushed; it’s a real contrast to the otherwise serious art style on display elsewhere.
Your and My Secret was a pleasant surprise; the real secret seems to be that Morinaga’s creation here goes well beyond what most people would expect with this kind of story. (The swapped people in bodies of the opposite sex finally getting to really check out the “new equipment” is just the least of Morinaga’s logical story progressions here.) My only real complaint is that now I need to find out what happens next. Fun and much smarter than you’d guess.
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