I have a problematic affliction for buying historical manga I have no chance of ever reading based on my love for the mangaka. In this case, Saitou Chiho's Torikaebaya [monogatari] gender swap story from the Heian period has been beautifully rendered (more or less a millennium later) in shoujo manga-form, but as with many historical manga, the text all but completely flies over the head of the non-native reader. As with most text-heavy shoujo, all kanji in Torikaebaya are given furigana... which sadly will not help you as the unknown word has probably been extinct since the dawn of the Edo. Nearly all proper nouns are written in four kanji compounds and titles are prohibitively obtuse unless you were lucky enough to study Classical Japanese Literature in high school in Japan. It thus comes as no surprise that this title has never been licensed or scanlated into English (and probably won't be).

If you're somehow able to read it, however, Torikaebaya is a lovely and gripping bildungsroman of Heian court life in the women's quarters. ( )