Ah, gender-switching. It seems to be an almost purely Japanese thing; off the top of my head, I can think of at least four manga or anime titles built around the idea, including the legendary Ranma ½, but no Western comics (and only a couple lame comedy movies from the 1980’s). It’s not a sub-genre that really interests me, and I’ve never read a series with gender-switching as a major plot point. That’s why I decided to pick Nephilim (Anna Hanamaki, Aurora Press, $10.95) as the next subject in my series of reviews of manga I would normally never read.

The story is set in a fantasy world of two countries, the Empire and the Federation. The nations have long been at odds, but are separated by a dense forest that prevents open war between their armies. The forest is inhabited by a native people called the Nephilim, who change gender when night falls.

When the mistress of the Emperor is kidnapped by Federation soldiers, the Empire sends bounty hunters to navigate the forest and bring her back. One of these is Guy, an Imperial soldier who might be in love with the lady in question. While on his mission, Guy sees a group of Federation soldiers tormenting a Nephilim lad. Guy attacks them, not so much to save the boy as to get information about the mistress. Alas, they know nothing, and the Nephilim takes off without so much as a ‘thanks’.

Later that night Guy comes across a beautiful naked girl bathing in one of those idyllic forest pools with a waterfall that doesn’t actually exist in real life. Of course it’s the same Nephilim, in his/her true female form. It turns out that if someone sees a Nephilim in their night-time form, the Nephilim has to kill them. But in her female body, Abel- the Nephilim- isn’t strong enough to take down Guy (and her male form is pretty damn girly too), so she decides to follow him to the Federation, making periodic attempts to kill him along the way.

They run into an old friend of Abel’s, another female Nephilim, and Guy learns that killing him isn’t just a tribal superstition; if Abel doesn’t kill him, she’ll die of a disease that slowly consumes violated Nephilim. Abel learns that Guy’s relationship to the Emperor’s mistress isn’t quite what it seems. In between these revelations they manage to make out a lot, and, for some reason, fall in love.

Unlike most gender-switching manga, Nephilim isn’t played for laughs. Abel’s ability actually has little to no bearing on the story; in fact, she could easily just be a girl who’s outraged that some random dude saw her naked. The gender-switching isn’t distracting or anything, just pointless.

The characters lack complexity. Guy is a lovable ass, the kind of person we love in fiction and loathe in real life. Abel is fiercely emotional, good-hearted etc. They’re stereotypes, and not even interesting ones. Likewise, their love story is perfunctory and unbelievable.

One good thing about Nephilim is Hanamaki’s art. The men are manly, the women are lovely and Abel in particular is quite stunning in her female form. In a note at the end of the volume, Hanamaki says she has been drawing the characters of Guy and Abel since high school, which probably accounts for their solid, detailed presence.

Aurora Press has done a good job with the slim release, with attractive cover art and, to me relief, none of the typos that seem to be plaguing releases by larger companies lately.

Despite the nice art and presentation, Nephilim is nothing to get excited about. Even fans of the gender-switching won’t get much out of it, and the story and characters just aren’t deep enough to carry the manga. Life is too short for me to bother with volume two.