I decided to try this out on a whim because
I felt a little bit swamped by some rather serious stuff lately. I craved for a little bit of nonsense and
slapstick humor. Sometimes you just want
to forget about the world around you and laugh yourself silly. Sure enough, this series gave me that much
needed break.
“Switch Girl” is based on a manga of the
same name. The premise presents us with
a heroine, Nika, a high school student who takes drastic measures to put up a façade
of perfection and popularity at school while hiding her true slovenly
self. Surely any woman of any age can
relate to this. We all agonize over the
image we present to the world whenever we step out of our comfort zone. I loved the fact that this story pulled no
punches. It threw everything at the
world, from “safety panties” to deodorizing one’s farts. I found it totally refreshing that the main
character was perfectly comfortable with her imperfections. The daily ritual of transforming herself was
just another way for her to have fun in her life – it neither defined her nor
turned her obsessive and psychotic. She
was perfectly able to let her true self shine through whenever the need for
honesty arose.
As a counterpoint comes Arata, a
good-looking boy who in exact reverse of Nika hides behind thick glasses to
avoid becoming popular. He faces abandonment
issues from when his mother left their family after he caught her having an
affair with another man. He discovers
Nika’s secret and they make a deal not reveal each other’s true selves to the
rest of the school. Their relationship
starts from there. Nika and Arata, trying
to get to know each other more, trying to get by in school, trying to outwit
those who antagonize them – with their wacky friends and Nika’s equally crazy
mother and elder sister thrown into the bunch, make for a perfectly loony
series.
It all sounds shallow and silly, I know,
but I found the situations rather entertaining.
It felt like it was meant to be that way – coarse, upfront, and
exaggerated. With only eight episodes
and each episode at only thirty minutes long, it didn’t feel overdone. If you’re looking for nothing heavy and just
want a few laughs, you’d probably like this one. Enjoy!
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