This is a cute and fun book. Just like the food it depicts, it was sweet and lovely. I loved how this book treats the crossdressing and gender-nonconforming characters. It balances the line well with manga shinanigans and not treating their presentation as a joke. Also, the one trans woman is treated wonderfully. I would love to read more and see where their relationships go. There were also interesting backstories that could be expanded upon in the future. The art was well done though it was a little hard to tell the 4 friends apart in the beginning. I am looking forward to continuing this series if I get a chance.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an ARC read!

This was a super cute story overall. I loved the characters and enjoyed being able to watch them learn more about each other and themselves. The only thing I will say is that I wasn't a fan of how abrupt the beginning starts. Otherwise, it was a great and funny read!

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC
SPOILERS TO FOLLOW

I LOVED THIS. WHAT EVEN IS GENDER?? (As one of the characters said lol). I think I remembering reading this before??? Or hearing about it??? I'm not sure but it was way more fun than I expected and really, really cute. I loved that they all wanted to meetup and eat sweets and dress in a way that felt natural to themselves (For Opera, Cacoa, and Lemon that is.) I'm excited to read more like this in the future!!

It's a cute cross-dress story with nice art but there are too many plot holes for my liking, especially in the beginning.

[Thanks to Netgalley and Kodansha for an ARC of this manga in exchange for an unbiased review.]

A group of online women with an interest in sweets decide to meet in real life. Except one of them, Cocoa, is only going because they’re interested in Opera. But Cocoa is a male dressing as a female. But so is Opera. But there’s even more to the story than that…

There have been a couple of cross-dressing manga I’ve read over the last little bit, typically involving guys dressing as women, but this one manages to boldly step forward as the best of them that I’ve read by a wide margin.

And you wouldn’t think it from the start, which promises two guys who are portraying themselves as women and misunderstandings ensue. This is the long, tedious, drawn-out pattern that <i>Crossplay Love</i> has been dutifully following.

Well, both these two have their genders revealed (at least to one another, not to their foursome of a group) early on and the question of just what constitutes attraction comes to the fore as they seem to be into each other, but they were women, but Opera is pretty outgoing and… so it goes.

Except there’s more to this than just that and I wouldn’t want to spoil this narrative, but it goes where you think it might (and I was dreading that moment until I saw where it lead)… and then goes farther and farther until everybody in that little group is so interesting and having such a good time that it’s infectious.

And the story will soon be touching on gender neutral bathrooms, bisexuality, transgender issues, and the various reasons why Opera and Cocoa do what they do. It’s entirely more than it appears.

Bundling the first two volumes of this together was a treat because I was engaged fully after a couple chapters and just devoured it. There’s a weird style of presentation here, with both regular chapters and short chapters, that I can’t explain, but works really well for the story.

I especially liked the woman that they keep bumping into in the shorter, omake-style bits. She’s mostly there for comedy relief, but, like everything else in this volume, there are some surprising layers there.

We even get more of a nod to real-life issues with cross-dressing, like shaving concerns, makeup use, being discovered, etc etc. This still has typical manga female designs, but it at least acknowledges these things, which puts it way ahead of most of the others I’ve read.

It’s hard to say that there’s a lot of romance here; everybody is mighty confused and Cocoa is dealing with self-esteem and confidence issues, which are surprising (yet also not) as we learn more about their background.

Everybody here is interesting and I want so much more from literally everybody. Even if it just stayed this friendly it would be an incredibly worthwhile read, but I am hoping for more than a couple of these couples to be a little bit more besides.

The story can get silly, but ultimately treats its characters with respect and big props to the translation for including a thoughtful statement about how they chose the pronouns they used at any given moment. It’s a nice addition.

When I thanked Kodansha and Netgalley at the top, I mean it more than usual. I would have let this pass me buy, I have some busy weeks ahead for manga, and that would have been a mistake. If this sounds at all good, well, I assure you it’s better than that.

4.5 stars - there’s nothing here that screams ‘classic’ so I won’t round it up, but this was so inclusive and wholesome and delightful once it got going that I just loved it. A very pleasant surprise.

I had a lot of fun with this comedic gender feels manga. "Cocoa" has been making friends in an all-girls sweets group, but she has a secret - he's actually a guy who just likes crossdressing, and he visits the meetings mostly to stare at her crush. However... her crush is ALSO a guy who likes crossdressing. Now what?

I think the way identities are talked about in this manga can be seen as "problematic" by Western modern standards, but like, you have to look past that to the intent. There's no intentional malice or transphobia here, just a bunch of characters exploring their gender expression and getting into comedic (but sometimes embarrassing) double identity shenanigans about it.

Also, although she is a side character, there is an actual trans woman (who is also a lesbian), which I thought was a nice contrast with the guys who like crossdressing.

Overall, I think identity is complicated and fluid, and cultural norms differ, so I don't want to use any labels to describe these characters that weren't used in the work itself - but I enjoyed their shenanigans a lot.

Author seems so sweet! The artwork was great! Maybe it is just because I haven’t read a lot of manga, but I did fibd myself to be kind of confused at some points.

I liked the premise of this one and I really wanted to like it but it just felt a little flat to me. I think if it was ONLY Opera and Cocoa, is have liked their story better. Also the fact that crossdressing was found out so early kind of ruined it for me a bit.

This manga is SO stinking cute. I love the fluidity of gender here and the emphasis that it doesn’t matter what your gender is - it matters who you want to spend your time with! I also really adore how each character is so different on how they look and act and how they perceive themselves. It’s so original and unique and quirky… and all in all, freaking adorable!

I’m always a little nervous when a manga highlights cross-dressing (it’s often rather ick from a western perspective - sometimes super sexualized and otherwise predatory), HOWEVER this one was wholesome and had lots of really funny moments where the moral of the story is “you can never assume someone’s gender”. I was especially fond of random background character Sacchan who kept overhearing all of these beautiful women coming out as men and reacting hilariously.

Also mad props for Taro, the trans woman, for shutting down any insinuation of “we’re all guys here” but also letting herself be open and have good conversations with her friends.

I also really liked the message of like recreating yourself FOR yourself to inspire your confidence and to be more able to enjoy yourself. Definitely looking forward to Cocoa and Opera going on more adventures.