Until the Full Moon

Matoh, perhaps better known for her “boys love” police procedural Fake, ventures into gender-swapping fantasy. Marlo, product of a mixed vampire/werewolf marriage, transforms at the full moon; rather inconveniently for Marlo and alarmingly for his parents, his transformation is not from man to wolf but male to female. Faced with dismal prospects for a cure for a condition more unconventional than harmful, Marlo’s parents hit on what seems to them a suitable solution: engage Marlo to his old childhood chum, the womanizing David. David, indifferent to gender and smitten with Marlo, is enthusiastic about the idea. He takes female Marlo’s reluctance as evidence Marlo is equally infatuated. Matoh’s art is slick but uneven, particularly in the beginning; her writing is painfully derivative, both of overwrought romance stories and more famous gender-swapping comedies, and excessively repetitive, with loud pronouncements of love gaining nothing from their frequency. (Aug.)