Thanks Kodansha Comics and Netgalley for trying out this manga by the author who did “Kiss me, hit him” (loved that series so much!).

While, the art was glorious, the story was sorta underwhelming like I felt I didn’t connect with the characters as much as I like and there were just too many generic tropes appearing every so often. I mean all it’s about is a over the top fan girl swapping bodies with an idol guy. It is rather lighthearted and romantic but it just wasn’t for me chief.....

COMICS & MANGA
REVIEW: ‘Star-Crossed!!’ Volume 1
02/21/2021 - by Kate Sánchez
SHARETWEETPIN ITSHARE
Reading Time: 3 minutes
Star-Crossed!! Volume 1 cover
Body swaps are a common plot-point in shojo. Whether it’s for humor, romance, or both, I’ve often shied away from stories based on these because of the tropes that come into play – often with misogynistic or a focus on ecchi storytelling. But, with Star-Crossed (stylized Star⇄Crossed!!) I’ve found a body-swapping shojo that captures my love of idols, the humor of crushes, and does so without the problematic gender-swapping elements. Created by Junko, the mangaka behind Kiss Him, Not Me! and localized in English by Kodansha Comics, Star-Crossed Volume 1. Unfortunately, translation and lettering credits were not available with the digital review copy provided.

In Star-Crossed Volume 1, God makes a mistake that impacts an idol and his biggest fan. Azusa is a Prince 4 U (P4U) superfan and her bias? Well, it’s Chika-kun of course. He is the cutest and most popular star in the idol group, and she’s thrilled to get front-row seats to his latest show. So when a stage light falls, Azusa leaps onstage and attempts to save his life. But instead, they both die. With the two of them off to heaven, God gives them a second chance, thanks to his mistake. But the mixups aren’t over and the two are put in the wrong bodies.

Now, the body swap isn’t as simple as it first appears. Instead of the story revolving around one-body swap, the two wind up getting into a situation where the swapping is nearly continuous – triggered by things unknown, the duo isn’t in control of when or how they swap. And in messy shojo glory, neither is God.

In truth, there is a lot going on in Star-Crossed Volume 1. A one-sided childhood romance that Azusa is oblivious to, a body swap, the horror of an idol walking into a bedroom plastered from floor to ceiling with his face, and a resourceful Azusa who puts her fangirl knowledge to use performing while in Chika’s body. Oh, and the obvious romantic tension between the leads. While the fast pacing works to the volume’s advantage in some moments, other times, it fails with characters popping out of nowhere.

That said, as an idol fan myself, Azusa’s dedication to Chika, while definitely obsessive, is recognizable. She knows his dances, his lines, his current hair length. It’s that dedication that helps her make it through pretending to be him. While Chika’s apathy makes it hard to pass as Azusa – especially when her childhood friend is involved.

As a parody of idol fans, Star-Crossed Volume 1 is hilarious. This is because of Chika’s reactions to Azusa and of course her fervor. But it’s God’s lax attitude towards the screw-ups that makes this series really shine and succeed on the comedy front. Additionally, Junko’s art makes this story sing—pun intended. It’s light, dreamy, and lovely. The light-hearted nature of the manga makes it a good salve for anyone looking to escape harder topics and the smiles it aims to bring are wholesome.

Overall, Star-Crossed Volume 1 is a great start to a new series from Junko and well worth picking up. It’s funny, light, and bound to make idol fans go “oh no it’s me” more than a few times.

While I enjoyed the artwork I didn’t feel a wow factor with the story. Overall it was just ok. If you are looking for a fun cute manga about the main character swapping bodies I would recommend Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches over this title.

My first thoughts on the premise of this book, is that it has been seen before but as things continued the storyline did diverge from what I was expecting and so the read was still interesting.

I feel like the characters have a lot of potential to be seen in new instalments, however, at this point, I don't feel like we've had the chance to understand these characters' personalities past fan and idol. The ending of this first volume does make me believe there will be more antics to see from the characters, so I'll be keeping an eye out for it.

The story starts really fast-paced with multiple things occurring, which did throw me off and wonder what the story had in store. And whilst the pace stayed fairly quick, I did manage to get into the swing of it. I think there was just a lot of information to be fit into the first volume to set up the basis of the plot for future instalments and when you understand that you can grasp why things are presented as such.

Overall, I think star-crossed is a fun, easy to read manga. The characters currently aren't too relatable, but I do think most of us can relate to being a fangirl! I'm excited to see how the story progresses!

Think "Kimi no Na wa" but placed in the world of idol groups and nose-bleeding fangirls—a wondrous, hilarious romcom that is sure to brighten up your day with its body-switching antics.

If there is something that is missing from my shelf, it is a good romantic comedy that is unique and genuinely comedic without any clichés. That is where Star-Crossed!! enters. As soon as it starts, we are introduced to the character of Azusa—a dedicated fangirl who spends most of her days admiring her favourite idol group—P4U. Whilst at first glance, Azu doesn't seem like anything special, we see her passion come through in her memorization of song lyrics and dances—nearly perfecting all of which that makes Chika a well-loved idol. She is hilarious with her overreaction, as well as she can be very relatable in her awkward ways. As this is just the first volume, I do hope we get to the point where we can move past her comedic self, and learn more about her on a far deeper level, as over-fixation on positivity may result into an unrealistic character. However, so far—Azusa is definitely one protagonist to be looking out for, as she is extremely lovable despite her clumsiness.

On the other hand, Chika is the perfect boy—at least seemingly anyways. Behind his good looks and charming words, lies a very headstrong perfectionist, a clumsy and hysterically amusing person. We don't learn much about his character at this moment, except what we've gathered from Azu—however I can see the potential in him becoming a new-found favourite "best boy" within the shoujo manga community.

The art style was also very beautiful, as I found myself in awe at Junko's character designs—seen especially at how swoon worthy Chika looks! Plus the level of detail allowed the story to come to life, and was very helpful in its vivid storytelling. The duality in illustrations also had a massive impact on the comedic relief as the contrast between the differing drawings of the characters in "normal mode" and "panic/fangirling mode", adds to the humour tenfold!

Overall, a fantastic read that brought me near tears in laughter. Honestly, I haven't laughed like that in forever! I will definitely be picking this up as soon as I can, and you can BET that I am anticipating the next volume, especially with that shocking plot twist that left us all hanging!

I won't lie, as soon as I saw this contained the switched bodies trope, I wanted to check it out. When it was a fan and their idol, that was sure to add some hilarity. I have seen stories similar to this in the past, but this still had a lot of hilarious moments and mishaps. I feel it was a good introduction to the characters and snippets of their personalities, but I think it was just a surface layer in some ways. I hope that future volumes will expand more on their pasts and what has shaped their personalities, as well as a possible love story between them. I did find this first volume enjoyable and would be interested in checking out future volumes.

It's like if the main character from Kiss Him Not Me could body swap with her faves. In some respects I prefer this series because it doesn't have the unfortunate fatphobia but idol obsession kinda wigs me out as a concept. I'm sure the story will go into the problems of idolizing and dehumanizing celebrities so I will withhold major judgments until I get a few more volumes in.

Ah, Junko's manga series are always wonderful and so is Star⇄Crossed!! too! Azusa adores Chika, who's an idol in a group called Prince 4 U. She's totally obsessed and pretends to be a good person at school, so that she doesn't taint Chika's image. At a gig she ends up saving the guy and they both die, but God tells them he made a mistake and returns the two back to life. But, the catch is that they've switched bodies and can turn back by unknown mechanisms and they keep switching all the time. I really liked the premise, since I knew Junko can handle it and she can. Azusa is funny and weird and Chika actually too, even though he's serious and cool. The whole thing is very juicy and over the top in a good way. The romance is slow burn and the whole series is only four books long.

The art is top notch! Junko draws awesome facial expressions and the characters look different. The humor is in the art too and still the series looks realistic. A good contradiction there surely. Junko's series are always heartwarming and cute without too much sugar, which makes them great. I'm not a fan of shoujo, but I have to read this series till the end. I need to know what and how everything happens!

This shojo manga follows Asuza and her favourite idol Chika. After an accident at Chika's concert, they find themselves switching bodies. The volume just sets up the story of them trying to understand this new ability. The story and art style is really cute, but I wish that we could have learned more about the protagonists, which is sure to happen in later volumes.
Overall, this series has come to a promising start.
3.5 stars

This is a great shojo. It really made me laugh out loud more than once. It takes a familiar plot and runs in a unique direction with it. Fun for fans of the genre.

It has all the jokes and tropes that shojo fans love but it really is it's own story. There are familiar characters that fit the genre but aren't carbon copies of other Mangas.

This was a lot of fun.

Thank you Netgalley for letting me read this book in return for an honest review.

I like the body swap premise a lot if it is done well and I think that this a good premise but I didn't really enjoy that it was between a fangirl (who has nosebleeds a lot) a pop star. I thought God's appearance was funny and helped with the storyline but this was something I could have easily not read and would not have missed out.

Rating: 2.5⭐
Would I Read It Again? I want to read further volumes to see if I could like this series
Would I Recommend it? Not sure

I loved the art, always have been a fan of Junko's art.

The premise of the story is not the most original, a bit tropey and cliché. But I don't mind that as long as a story is executed well.

The story itself takes a little bit of getting used to. The beginning feels a bit rushed, but it got better as the story progressed. I enjoyed the comedy bits. And overall enjoyed the story and would definitely check out the second volume.

High-schooler Asuza is obsessed with idol Chika, star of the band Prince 4 U. Her room is adorned with posters of him, she gets up at 4am to get in line for his concerts, and she makes her family watch television performances.

At the latest Prince 4 U concert, Asuza lucks out and manages to nab herself a front row seat – any fan’s dream come true. Disaster strikes when a light fitting falls on Chika, killing both him and Asuza who has leapt into action to save her idol. In heaven, God reveals this was an error by one of his staff and the pair shouldn’t be dead, so he sends them back to earth where they are accidentally switched into each other’s bodies.

Now, I love a good body swap comedy as much as the next person, but the first volume of Star-Crossed!! felt a bit flat. The body swapping happens really early on in the manga, and I think it would have benefitted from some more characterisation of Asuza and Chika to establish them as individuals before the body swap happened. All we as readers really know about them is that Asuza is a Chika fan-girl and Chika is an idol, we know nothing else. Other characters later comment that they’re acting strangely or addressing them in different ways, but we really only have their say so on this. I think some preamble would have been good so as a reader you could identify that Asuza and Chika were acting out of character without having to have it pointed out.

What sets Star-Crossed!! apart from other body swap stories is that Asuza and Chika swap back and forth several times. It seems God hasn’t quite got his powers down, and the pair are in their own bodies one moment, then each others the next. This makes for a fairly interesting concept, and does help to develop the personalities of each protagonist more and give you an insight into their true character and habits when they are in their own bodies. As mentioned before, I do think some of this sort of content would have been beneficial before the first body swap instance, but it does get into it eventually which is good.

As a first volume, Star-Crossed!! does a good job of setting up the plot for future volumes. It’s not particularly exciting on its own, but it does end on a cliffhanger of sorts which has made me want to continue reading, and I think there’s the potential for the series to be quite amusing and heartfelt. Though I didn’t find it riproaringly funny, I did chuckle along at times, and can definitely see how Asuza and Chika will be put into some funny situations in future which lends itself to some more laughs to be had.

As a fan of Junko's previous work 'Kiss Him, Not Me', I was super excited to hear of 'Star-Crossed's release.

Star-Crossed is a romance-comedy about a female fan (Azusa) and her fan-crush, boy band/idol member (Chika). At one of the venues where the group P4U is performing at, Azusa gleefully cheers on her crush Chika when she notices a lighting structure beginning to break apart, in the path to crush her favorite artist. Using unknown super-reflexes, Azusa jumps into action to try and shove Chika away from the falling doom; unfortunately instead of saving him, they are both crushed to death by the structure and wake up in Heaven. As God apologizes for his mistake, neither were meant to die, he sends them back to their bodies on Earth only for them to find out that they're both unharmed, and in the wrong bodies.

I'm excited to follow the misadventures of super-fan Azusa and 'just-wants-a-regular-life' Chika as they try to fix the mix-up and survive within the other's world.

This story was too ridiculous.

I only wanted to read it because it’s from the same mangaka of Kiss Him Not Me, and the reason this has an extra star is because of the surprise short chapter at the end, but based on Star-Crossed alone, this premise was too goofy.

It’s strange because the tone feels similar to KHNE, but the story was a mess. Our main female lead is obsessed with an idol, and it creeped me out with how devoted she was too him. Like his posters are her wall paper. And she kisses them. I just can’t relate. Yes, obsessed fans like her exist, some more than others, but having them as the love interest of said idol she is obsessed with it makes the whole thing seem creepy.

Maybe it’s just innocent wish fulfilment, but I’ve heard too many horror stories of fans crossing the line and idols being burned out and threatened from the excessive fan adoration that takes over their lives to just take this at surface level. Just look at the manga series Not Your Idol and season three of Aggretsuko, and those are just some of the fictional stories. It gets scary.

Maybe I’m overthinking this, but it just didn’t work for me. Maybe it has the potential to grow and find its feet, but I don’t think I will continue reading this. Kiss Him Not Me works much better in my opinion, and if you love Junko’s previous work then you might like this.

This manga just didnt make sense for me. I felt like the story was too rushed and it flitted about, missing large gaps of the story. I did however like the will they, won't they aspect of romance between the two main characters and the swapping of souls in bodies. Although this has been done many times before, this was actually what made me continue reading and not get bored. I did enjoy the illustration style and if the gaps in storyline were sorted out, would read the second installment.

✨🌟 7.5 out of 10 🌟✨
Classic and tropey but quite funny.

Keywords: manga, romance, young adult, contemporary, body swap

Star Crossed is a manga about a girl crushing on a famous singer. Her chance at love with him seems impossible until one day she found herself swapped to his body. It's a hillarious story about the girl and the singer trying to control the situation in this chaotic madness.

The story of this manga is fun, lighthearted and leans more into comedy. The art is pretty ok too. Alas love story between fans and artist isn't really my cup of tea so I don't really vibes with it. But I'm sure many would find this enjoyable and entertaining read to fill the time.

Thank you Netgalley and Kodansha Comics for lending me e-arc of this manga in exchange of honest review.

An adorable first volume that gave me a few laughs!

(Rating 3.5 out of 5 stars)

Here we have a Freaky Friday moment with an idol Chika and his mega-fan Azusa. The two switch bodies and volume one is a light-hearted story of the chaos that ensues.
Azusa's obsession with Chika is a superficial one so the sparks don't really fly when I see them interact and have intimate moments. The art style is beautiful and clean yet the story feels simple.

I enjoyed this story and wouldn't mind donning a physical copy just to relish in the clean lines of the art. But the story left a bit to be desired as I turned the pages hoping to find something that intrigued me further.

If you're looking for a light-hearted story with clean art that doesn't take itself too serious, then this story might be for you.

I’m not sure how I feel about this story. The art is beautiful and the humor is there but I don’t care for stories about idols all that much. This volume ended with Chika joining her class in high school. Ugh, I don’t like the whole famous idol goes to public school thing...

If you like stories about teen idols/celebrities and like the whole body switching trope, then this story will be for you but unfortunately, I probably won’t read any more of this story.

Thank you, NetGalley for letting me read this!

#StarCrossed1 #NetGalley

This one is closer to a forward-leaning 3.5 stars because it has craziness potential as a first volume, but I'm worried the hijinks might get tired pretty quickly in future volumes of the series.
A body-swap story between an idol's mega-fan and the idol gives many opportunities for fun situations and Junko takes advantage of every single one. I get a feeling that there's a lot more to Chika than we first learn. Just that would be enough to earn this series a second volume chance.


Many happy thanks to NetGalley and Kodansha comics for the early read.