Metamo Kiss, Volume 1

Adolescent sexual insecurity gets fed through a blender in this comic high school manga. After having been raised far away by his grandmother, 13-year-old Kohanamaru Taki is rushing through a train station on his way to rejoin his family. As so often happens in manga, he literally bumps into cute Nanao Higashiyama. As happens less often but still not infrequently, he discovers that he's switched bodies with her. When the two kids arrive at his (or, at the moment, her) home, they discover that the problem is the result of a family quirk. Everyone automatically switches souls with the person he or she is meant to be with. Deliberate and accidental body switches and much embarrassment follow. Kohanamaru has even forgotten that he has a hot twin brother who turns out to be Nanao's childhood love—unless it actually was Kohanamaru. The young people flounder entertainingly through mildly risqué situations, as when they take baths and find themselves looking at and (yuck!) touching the strangers' bodies that they're trapped inside. Omote's art is above average, and each page bristles with jumpy energy; unfortunately, the subject matter has been so thoroughly worked over by Ranma ½ and similar series that readers may be as apt to yawn as smile. (Mar.)