A seven-volume romantic/cross-dressing comedy by Uchida Fujimaru. The protagonist is Hanazono Ippei, a middle-school student who suffers from the interestingly-named “Cherry Boy” Syndrome, which means he freaks out completely whenever he even goes near a girl. Thanks to that he fails an exam for a co-ed high school, which means he loses a bet he had with his dad and has to dress up like a girl and work in their restaurant.
However, Ippei finds out that as a girl he has no problem at all talking to girls and gets a crush on one of the customers on the same day. This is good news for him… right?
Uhh, not quite. It’s never that simple. Dressed as Ichiko, Ippei manages to win Rika (his crush’s) trust while simultaneously sort-of dating her as Ippei. And then there’s the fact that Rika is a pro-wrestler whose her arch-rival falls in love with Ippei, which means you’ve got the beginnings of a far-from-ordinary romantic comedy.
Chou (Super) Virgin!
The ending was happy, but left a bit to be desired. SPOILERS: Rika finds out about the deception and is rightfully mad, but then Ippei goes “I love you! I only did this because I love you!” and then everything is somehow okay again and they’re a couple. The ending shows he explained his problem to her and that she forgave him, but it really is sudden. And they haven’t shown how they’re going to resolve the issue of her being 19 and on her own and he being 16 and in school. 10 years from now it won’t even matter, but right now they’re at very different places in life.
But well, all’s well that ends well. It was a fun series, not too many wacky hijinks, an interesting cast, and a happy ending. Can’t ask for much more than that.