Title: Futari Switch Vol. 1
Author: Akira Hiramoto
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 180
Genre: Slice of Life, Comedy, Supernatural
Publication Date: August 26, 2025
The Story
Ichigo and Shinichi are childhood friends and neighbors, but they mix like oil and water. Shinichi has an odd liking for bitter melons, but he doesn’t particularly enjoy eating them all the time. When Ichigo brings in some of her mom’s karaage, he’s more than happy to oblige. This grabs the attention of Yuuto, a classmate and the object of Ichigo’s affection. Likewise, Shinichi discovers that his crush, Soukura, is into bitter melon and begins to take notes, only to get caught by Ichigo in doing so.
After school, Soukura invites Ichigo out, but when she overhears that Yuuto is coming over to Shinichi’s place for a game of Catan, she changes plans and rushes home, where she eavesdrops on their conversation through their paper-thin walls. Since Shinichi has no air conditioning, he opens a window. To get a better vantage point on Yuuto, Ichigo crawls out onto the balcony with a bitter melon in hand. She leans over right at the same time as Shinichi steps out. Surprised, he freaks out and they tumble over the side. On the way down, the bitter melon wraps them in some sort of power, causing them to switch bodies!
Now, when you’re a young teenager with hormones running through your body, of course, the first thing you’re doing is exploring your new body, except they do it right in front of one another. Ichigo (now as Shinichi) suggests that they take a bath together to get the sweat off them from the day’s heat. They laid down some ground rules, but both are worried about school.
When they arrive at class, Yuuto invites “Shinichi” to take a piss with him. I won’t go further, but I will say it is a scene you have to behold for yourself. Meanwhile, Soukura and “Ichigo” are in the girls’ bathroom, where she’s trying to figure out how the bidet on the toilet works! When they return to class, some second-year comes in and tries to ask Soukura out on a date, but she clearly doesn’t want anything to do with him. When he gets a bit too invasive of her personal space, “Shinichi” steps in and handles the issue. This draws Soukura’s admiration as the real Shinichi trapped in Ichigo’s body can only watch on.
What’s more is that after the four of them get together, Soukura admits something to “Ichigo,” but will it come to pass as a shady new character stands outside?
Characters
First up, we have Shinichi Motoyama. He’s kind of quiet, laid-back, and not much to look at. He, for some reason, enjoys bitter melons and is a childhood friend of Ichigo. He’s not exactly the life of the party, and many people see him as a background character more than anything, but he is friends with Ichigo, as she is the one who typically puts up with him. One would say he’s a bit self-conscious as well, but despite that, he’s still a normal teen boy who has feelings, and most of those feelings are aimed at Soukura, even if he’s too much of a chicken to go over and talk to her.
Next, we have Ichigo Fujichika. She is a tomboy through and through. She’s forward, brash, and even knows martial arts. Despite that, she’s a normal teen girl with feelings, and hers are aimed at Yuuto. She turns into a hot, embarrassed mess whenever she sees him, and is so obsessed that she would even go so far as to break off plans with her friends just to press her ear to her bedroom wall and eavesdrop on his conversations whenever Yuuto and Shinichi hang out. Yikes.
Things change when they switch bodies, though. At first, they are themselves, but as they attempt to blend in at school, they begin to take on each other’s qualities, more so with “Shinichi.” While in his body, Ichigo becomes more outward, and people begin to notice the change… especially Soukura. Meanwhile, Shinichi, as Ichigo, is learning a lot about being a girl, and especially about how openly girls talk to one another about things. He attempts to play the role of observer, but continues to speak as if he were still Shinichi, which others, mostly Soukura, notice right away. It’s a fun little balance as they learn how to act as each other!
Next, we have Yuuto Satou, Shinichi’s friend, who hangs out with him nearly every day. They enjoy playing Catan together, and beyond liking fried chicken, there’s not much to say about him. He’s just your common teen friend who sometimes likes to give Shinichi a hard time, but outside of that, there’s nothing too special about him.
The same could be said for Tess Soukura. She’s just a typical teen girl, but her biggest quality is not falling for some punk’s advances and having the backbone to turn him down. Even if she oddly likes bitter melon like Shinichi, she’s still about as much of a background supporting character as they come. Perhaps Yuuto and Soukura will change over time, but until then, this is what we have to work with.
Lastly, we have an animated bitter melon that likes to eat Tarouyaki. If you were like “huh?” then I’m right there with you. It has the power to swap bodies, but it’s not exactly in a hurry to swap them back. Still, this is going to end up be the long-running mystery of the series, so we’ll see if there is some sort of logic behind why a bitter melon is some sort of life form, and how it even ended up in Ichigo and Shinichi’s apartment.
Final Thoughts
Well, that was certainly a fun first volume. When I saw the parental advisory on the cover, I had a feeling that this story wasn’t going to shy away from body exploration, and I wasn’t disappointed. Sure, you can say it’s a perverse plot device, but you know as well as I do that if you swapped bodies with the opposite gender, exploring yourself is the first thing that you’re doing the split second you get the chance to do so. What I didn’t expect was that the characters would do it right in front of one another. I guess there is a certain level of comfort when you’ve been friends since childhood, huh?
As for the whole body swapping gimmick, it’s nothing new that hasn’t been done before. This series doesn’t even attempt to put a twist on it outside of the mechanism that caused the body swapping to happen, so why is the first volume so good? It’s because of the diversity of the characters and the comedic situations that they find themselves in. It’s not your typical trope comedy scenarios that happen. It’s as if the author took the time to come up with some original humor that was genuinely hilarious. So, no… you’re not going to find the typical “DON’T DO THAT WITH MY BODY” jokes here. Instead, you’re going to find the “HOW TO I PEE AS A BOY!?” jokes followed by a scene that has to be seen to be believed. Also, if you are a male and, somehow, are clueless about how to pee without taking your pants off, the manga offers a step-by-step dos and don’ts guide to help you out… I’m not even making that up.
Even though the concept isn’t new, and even though the execution isn’t revolutionary, the level of humor and the character work are carrying this plot point to highly enjoyable levels. This is going to be a fun series as long as this level of quality is maintained throughout. It definitely surprised me, and I can’t wait to check out the next volume!
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