Manwha Review: Cherry Boy, that Girl

So not too long ago I said that I would be leaving for awhile. I gave a few reasons as to why that was, but it's partly because I don't have nearly as much time as I used to, what with school, trying to get to college, working and everything else in between, I have less time to watch anime in general let alone blog about what I watch all the time.

Darin and Strawberry

I am back briefly to do only one thing, and that is put something in place of that old Manga Check-Up for Cherry Boy, That Girl. To this day, people are still commenting on the out of date reaction that was written over TWO YEARS AGO, and I thought it was about time to do an actual review of the series considering it ended about a month ago.

So let's get started shall we? And please stop trafficking that post. Please.

I've kept up with the Cherry Boy, That Girl series translations for almost 3 years now, and it's finally reached it's closing. It had it's ups and downs, but I overall enjoyed the series.

Cherry Boy, That Girl was written by South Ant, a Korean artist. Its 110 chapters long and complete. Put under the romance josei genre, the story opens with a pretty highschool girl, Strawberry, and her gorgeous boyfriend Darin. Strawberry is a vain little shit and Darin is even moreso. At the beginning, they both suck and you could stand to see less of them. I wish I was kidding. The two attend a highschool that had only recently become co-ed, making Strawberry one of the few girls. Lucky for her, none of the other girls were too pretty, leaving her with all the attention of the boys. Strawberry, feeling like the queen of the school, decides to try and go after her sunbae Pear. Eventually Darin finds out about the two and intervenes. This is where the cross dressing also comes in as a genre.

Darin makes the great decision of cross dressing as a girl named Cherry, and seducing Pear so that he'd drop Strawberry. The bad thing is, it worked. Strawberry, irritated to no end, breaks up with Darin, which was not what he had wanted to happen. And Strawberry, having abused the affections of the boys in the school and having no girl friends, is left alone.

Wally and Strawberry

So far this just sounds like a story about a bunch of jack-ass fruits. And well, that is pretty true. The plot synopsis for a bit makes you think that you'll hate the main characters.... Well you will, most likely. You will dislike Strawberry for a very long time, you won't be to keen on Pear, and Darin will only continue to get worse after the cross dressing incident. But that's also what makes it so enticing to begin with. What other manwha, (it's actually a webseries or webtoon) have you heard done that? A girl starts off already with a boyfriend, is super bratty and stuck up, and is overshadowed by her really good looking boyfriend who cross dresses to steal guys from her.

Its so crazy that you have to read it!
Not to mention the one thing that may not be appealing, the characters, changes as well. Most of the characters go through serious development, turning into almost completely different people by the end of the series. Some become insane, some are suddenly justified, and some gain a sense of morality. The main characters have complex back stories, (at the very least they aren't cut/copy) that had caused them to act the way they did within reason. But that never excuses the way they act later, making for a very realistic setting on changing, and making excuses for yourself.

Considering that the characters are a high point, they could also be taken as a low point. Don't get me wrong, everything I typed above is true its just that this only occurs to a small percentage of main characters. The characters that don't fit into the above category are left underdeveloped and are just kind of....there. Some even become unimportant as time goes on, yet they're still there for plot's sake of course. They just sort of stick around until the end of the series after their role is filled. They don't change from when they entered to when they left. They are only a few characters like this, but they appear too often in the story for that to even be an issue.

Another possible downfall of the series is how it progressed after about 2/3 of the way through. This does mean though that there was adequate amount of romance, character development, interactions, and the slightest bit of tasteful drama in that beginning 2/3rds, but its the last 1/3 that leaves people unsatisfied. Since I've followed this series for so long and got so many comments on the other post that I wrote while kind of drunk off of 'ohmygoddidyouseethatican'tbelievethisishappening' moment, I'll make a separate post that encompasses my feelings on the ending 1/3rd of the series.

Moving away from the characters for now, the art of the series is very bright and colorful. The actual design of the characters is nothing to seriously write home about, but they are distinguishable between each other and are not overly garish. Especially considering that the characters are named after fruits. I do love the way the artist draws Strawberry's lace up high tops though. Just, you know. They're cute.

Drama loving angsty Korean fruit students eating lunch

As a final verdict, considering the series is done, I'd recommend it for anyone looking for a good drama or a little realism in their shoujo romance. I am not able to, however,  in good conscious call this series realistic. This series is a good one, with nice buildup, avoidance of any annoying cliches that sometimes happen in stories such as this. It has good overall character development and even some psychological elements played into the story. The psychological element coming in when they are discovering out why they act the way they do and so much more. I really like the main pair the series overall was worth my 3 year's of attention.