Manga-ka: Aya Kanno
Publisher: Viz Media
Rating: Older Teen (13+)
Release Date: May 2011
Synopsis: “A potion at school causes all the guys to act manly and all the girls to act feminine! Suddenly, Asuka loses interest in all the girly hobbies he loves, and Ryo is working at a bakery?! Can anything break the spell they’re under and turn them back to normal?”
Otomen isn’t a series known for its restraint. The series has never shied away from off-the-wall characters and contrived situations, but for the most part they all stayed believable (if more than a little extreme). While the series has always existed in a world of cartoonish hyper reality, it never relied on anything supernatural to move the plot forward. So when a major plot point in the book revolved around a potion (seriously, a potion?) I was just about ready to give up on this series. But something surprising happened as I kept reading. Kanno take this bizarre situation and uses it to really get at the heart of the series, going deeper into its themes than it ever has before.