A naive, oblivious, and rather happy-go-lucky hermaphrodite (female in appearance) blunders in search of romance and identity, guided by the fretting mother figure of her cousin (best friend, sometime rival, sometime sexual and romantic interest).
LOTS OF YURI THEMES. Not much squickiness at all. Mako-chan's lovably sweet and not at all freaky, and no, this isn't some 40yo tentacle raep fan saying this.
The drama element is in the search for identity, yearning for acceptance, and fear of ending up alone and understood by no one. Strangely but entertainingly, the fear of discovery element is played out as comedy.
End-ING is seriously baaaaad, with two blatant betrayals and an idiotic scifi element.
The alien crap was ridiculous. The losing it to Keigo of all people thing was a letdown, albeit realistic, and she did:
a) get bullied into it via threat of a reveal,
b) get convinced by a boy-loving idiot that nothing would set her heart right better than boy sex,
c) get betrayed herself by Hiromi with Keigo, in a MUCH subtler but FAR bigger way, and
d) regret it almost instantly... however, didn't really wanna see that.
But poor Kana. She was forgotten altogether, which was the bigger part of the betrayal - despite being the most accepting and honest character in the series.
...the END, as in the two pages, however, is delicious:
"Hi, I'm back to stay, cuz I realized I'd forgotten something important: we never got around to having sex." Hug, kiss, cut.
People who found that the end came outta nowhere missed the subtleties. Yes, a series in which the cast freaks out and makes a hermaphrodite masturbate to avoid accidentally impregnating herself via wetdream, and a character loses her virginity by stumbling in a bathtub CAN, in fact, have one of the subtlest romances ever, where, comedic ecchi moments aside, the pivotal points are a few blushes and turns.
Does contain one MAJOR shocker by Japanese standards: PEOPLE USING CONDOMS. Whooooa.