Office workers Hinata Tachibana and Jinguji Tsukasa cannot be as different as night and day: having been best friends for 32 years, Tachibana resents Jinguji for being popular with the ladies and wants to get him married off so he would stop stealing his thunder.
One day after they both attended a mixer and a drunken Tachibana bemoans that he'd rather be a pretty girl, they are both visited by the Goddess of Love who grants Tachibana's wish before whisking them into a parallel world. After insulting the mysterious goddess, she enchants them with a curse to motivate them into defeating the Demon King. However, odd feelings begin to manifest between the two friends compelling them to try to accomplish their task before their friendship is jeopardized.
Life With An Ordinary Guy Who Reincarnated Into A Total Fantasy Knockout, Japanese title Fantasy Bishoujo Juniku Ojisan to (literally "When an Old Man Becomes a Fantasy Pretty Girl"), officially shortened as Fabiniku, is a 2019 comedy and fantasy manga series written by Yu Tsurusaki and illustrated by Shin Ikezawa, appearing in Cygames' Cycomi manga and collected into five volumes by 2022. The series received an anime adaption by OLM that premiered in January 2022 during the winter season.
This manga has examples of:
- Ambiguously Bi: Basically the cornerstone of Jinguuji and Tachibana's relationship. They're clearly attracted to each other, but since Tachibana is in the body of a girl, defining their sexuality gets a bit hazier. Tachibana identifies as male and has always been interested in women, is in a woman's body and is falling for the male Jinguuji. Jinguuji shows no interest at all in any woman and actually much prefers the company of Tachibana, considering him his oasis, but only shows romantic attraction to him when Tachibana is in a woman's body—so maybe Jinguuji was always attracted to Tachibana and never realized. On the other hand, it's implied that Tachibana's charms work mostly on people who are already attracted to women. And there's the fact that it's possible both are simply under the effect of a curse. A flashback suggests but does not confirm Tachibana has been attracted to Jinguuji romantically since they were children, but his memories were altered right before he started to remember that.
- Ambiguous Situation: It's unclear whether the Goddess of Love's curse is actually that Tachibana and Jinguuji became attracted to each other. While the timing is suspicious, she also never specified what her curse was.
- Animal-Eared Headband: The points of Tachibana's crown somewhat resemble rabbit ears, in reference to the rabbit woman Love Goddess that chose him. When he has moments of Super-Deformed expression, it gives him a silhouette like a cartoon rabbit.
- Attractive Bent-Gender: Tachibana's New Life in Another World Bonus is that he became a female Living Aphrodisiac.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: After failing to find a date at a mixer once again, Tachibana drunkenly rambles that he wishes he was a pretty girl all the guys fell for, going into detail of the kind he likes (young-looking, short, blonde, and with "sharp features"—which gets interpreted as "sharp teeth"). The Goddess of Love takes this wish literally and expects him to save her world, as payment for the wish or to reverse it.
- Blessed with Suck: Played both ways. Tachibana's body change is shown to have its ups and downs. He's now in a much smaller body, so he isn't as strong as he used to be, and he also walks slower since his legs are smaller, however, he is also in a much younger body, which gives him fewer pains and gets rid of his shoulder aches as well as having more energy. Further, Tachibana's given skills such as Peerless Beauty, which requires a Perception Filter to be used or he'll charm everyone around him, and Troublemaker, which makes Tachibana a Weirdness Magnet.
- Break the Haughty: Lou first gets one-upped by Tachibana when she asks the villagers who they thought was more beautiful; she gets insulted by Jinguuji, and she becomes disgraced when Jinguuji takes her lock of hair off.
- Cassandra Truth: Nobody ever believes Schwarz was summoned by a goddess to be a hero.
- Childhood Friends: Tachibana and Jinguuji have been friends since they were little kids. By the way Jinguuji talks, it's also possible Tachibana is his only friend.
- The Chosen Many: There's twelve goddesses in the fantasy world and each one of them chose a Japanese person as their hero to defeat the Demon King.
- Chuunibyou: Schwarz von Liechtenstein Lohen-Gramm, the hero that will save this world. The Gratuitous German name that translates to something meaninglessly edgy (to include the name of a small doubly-landlocked nation), overly theatric mannerisms, wielding a self-proclaimed holy sword, and tendency to come up with elaborate scenarios on the fly such as when he assumes Tachibana has fallen in love with Parental Substitute Jinguuji, all paint him as a young man with a slim grasp on reality having a blast in a fantasy world. The Goddess of Night, the goddess that brought Schwarz to the other world, is even worse, to the point that Schwarz has to translate for her.
- Claimed by the Supernatural:
- The Goddess of Love left her mark on the back of Tachibana's neck, marking him as her chosen one.
- Schwarz likewise has the mark of the Goddess of Night on the back of his hand.
- Creepy Crosses: The lair of the Demon King is a giant cross.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Schwarz might be a pompous chuunibyou, but as his intro showed when he defeated two bandits in one hit and then accidentally cut a house in half, he can back up his boasts when needed.
- Cute Creature, Creepy Mouth: The guardian deity of the elf forest looks like a mix of a bear and a rabbit. Tachibana thinks it's cute until it opens its mouth to reveal some freaky teeth and its face's skin literally lifts up to leave it in the flesh.
- Damsel in Distress: Tachibana is weak, easily overpowered and often in danger since he basically has no skill aside from being cute and attractive. Even after leveling up, since most of his growth goes to his luck stat, Jinguuji ends up having to rescue him almost every arc. It's later revealed this is more or less by design, since instead of receiving an overpowered weapon like other heroes seem to have, he has Jinguuji as his weapon.
- Destructive Savior: The first time Schwartz uses his ridiculously powerful magic sword, his utter lack of experience with it causes massive property damage that he's promptly arrested for.
- Enemy Mine: The Elf Chieftess agrees to help Jinguuji in rescuing Tachibana from a cult just so she can kill the god of the village that kidnapped and then ditched her for a prettier sacrifice.
- Entertainingly Wrong: Schwarz starts thinking that Tachibana and Jinguuji's relationship is that Jinguuji is a Parental Substitute for Tachibana, who misinterpreted his fatherly love for her and ended up falling for him. He ends up challenging Jinguuji because he thinks that's a challenge that's necessary for him to give Tachibana's hand in marriage to him.
- Even the Guys Want Him: Jinguuji's looks are even able to attract the attention of the male Shen.
- Expy: Schwarz shares Kirito's hairstyle and color as well as fashion sense, though he's the polar opposite in terms of character.
- Eyes Always Closed: Shen, a strange merchant the duo meets and decides to accompany them, is a mysterious and suspicious person whose eyes are always closed.
- Eyes Out of Sight: When Tachibana was a guy, his hair constantly covered his eyes, and always had since he was a young boy.
- First Law of Gender Bending: The Goddess of Love will only return Tachibana to his original male form if he and Jinguuji save the world by defeating the Demon King, obviously a very difficult task. Despite magic seeming common, there's no hint of any other character being able to change him back. It's eventually specified only one goddess' hero will get their wish fulfilled, meaning Tachibana may be stuck permanently even if someone else defeats the King.
- Fountain of Youth: Besides changing his sex, Tachibana's new body is (seemingly) younger.
- Gender Bender:
- Shortly after being brought into the other world, the Goddess of Love melts Tachibana's body into goo, then reforms him as a female. Rather than having a female version of his original body, Tachibana's new form is based on his ideal of an attractive girl.
- They later meet another hero in the opposite situation, a former high schooler who asked to become an adult guy. Unlike Tachibana, his transformation was entirely voluntary and was requested because his crush wasn't interested in a same-sex relationship.
- Gender Bender Angst:
- Initially, Tachibana isn't too broken up about having a female body, and even seems to enjoy the attention of being so pretty. Eventually, he gets very frustrated by what his attraction to Jinguuji says about his own (current or former) sexuality, then comes to the alarming realization that he's forgotten what his own face looked when he was male. Tachibana is only able to distract himself by focusing on how he's still attracted to a girl, insisting only those are his "real" feelings.
- Jinguuji actually takes Tachibana's change much more harshly and right off the bat, literally vomiting in response and telling the Goddess of Love that she's robbed him of his Living Emotional Crutch. Jinguuji is consistently disgusted whenever he feels attracted to Tachibana's female form—seemingly less about his own sexuality (whatever that is) than feeling it cheapens their friendship.
- God-Eating: After obliviously eating some of her guardian deity alongside Tachibana and Jinguuji, Lou the elf chieftess ends up acquiring a taste for god flesh, and following her first full-aware meal involving a Human Sacrifice loving squid god, she starts actively trying to kill and eat more gods.
- Guile Hero: Subverted. Tachibana is supposed to take this role, as his only skill is to charm others into doing things for him and his main stat as he levels up is luck. However, he tends to be too hot-headed and impulsive to actually pull it off and tends to use his Charm Person ability as more of a blunt instrument.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: In-universe, Jinguuji was always very intelligent and became incredibly powerful in the fantasy world, but is counted as The Champion to Tachibana instead of one of the The Chosen Many himself.
- Invincible Hero: Jinguuji is level 70 at the start of the story, already in a much higher level and much more powerful than any being they find (the next strongest person they find is level 52). Whenever there's a physical challenge, he can easily cheese through it.
- Jerkass Gods: The Goddess of Love is rather short-tempered and curses the two "heroes" when they continued to show insolence towards her.
- Jumping the Gender Barrier: Tachibana becomes female, then he and Jinguuji immediately become infatuated with each other. They're not remotely pleased with this, especially because their feelings might just be caused by a curse. The manga is also very ambiguous about what their sexual orientations were to begin with — Jinguuji actually hadn't ever fallen for a woman before Tachibana became one.
- Last-Name Basis: Despite being friends for decades, Hinata Tachibana and Tsukasa Jinguuji always use their last names, presumably because they've been co-workers for so much of it.
- Love Goddess: The main characters were brought to another world by its Goddess of Love, a very attractive woman with rabbit ears. Her followers are shown to worship physical beauty, wearing Stripperific clothing as ceremonial garments, and her chosen champion, Tachibana, is so beautiful that men will fall over him due to his presence alone, and he has to use a Perception Filter to avoid causing chaos everywhere he goes.
- Manchild:
- Tachibana is thirty-two years old, but his personality better fits the younger body he's transformed into. He rarely plans anything ahead, throws tantrums when he can't get his way and is heavily reliant on Jinguuji to take care of everyday tasks.
- Although much higher-functioning, Jinguuji is Not So Above It All, either. His social skills only hold so long as he believes others are treating him fairly. Otherwise, Jinguuji shows himself to be very short-tempered, selfish, and impatient.
- Man, I Feel Like a Woman: Defied; Tachibana thought he'd like the idea of sexually exploring his new body, but was too off-put by the age difference, partly because it made him think of his younger sister.
- Maou the Demon King: As it's common in the isekai genre, there's a Demon King that the protagonists must defeat in order to go back to their own world. In an unpredictable twist, the Demon King is just a baby.
- Men Are Strong, Women Are Pretty: In the alternate world, Jinguuji is the World's Strongest Man, overpowering just about anyone and everyone, sometimes combined, and Tachibana is turned into the World's Most Beautiful Woman, able to seduce just about anyone and everyone just by standing there.
- Mood Whiplash: After an adventure with another chosen hero, Tachibana and Jinguuji start walking towards the capital, the mood is peaceful, hopeful and friendly, but suddenly a carriage carrying a kidnapped Chieftess passes by them, and they decide to ignore it.
- Never Trust a Title: The English title indicates Tachibana "reincarnated" into his female form, which is debatable considering his body was physically transported to the fantasy world before being transformed (though the Goddess of Love does mention killing Tachibana before melting his body down to revive him).
- Power Limiter: Tachibana spends most of his time wearing a Cool Crown that limits the effect of his inhuman looks so people won't fall madly in lust with him on sight. The crown acts like a Perception Filter, but it is not perfect. Tachibana's power will still kick in on anyone focused on him intently enough.
- Pretty Boy: Jinguji is a very handsome-looking man who often sparkles whenever Tachibana stares at him.
- RPG Mechanics 'Verse: The other world has characters use stats, skills, and levels, at least when they come from Earth.
- Romantic Comedy: The manga is described as a Rom Com between "an old man and an ex-old man".
- Running Gag: Men that have fallen for Tachibana for the first time tend to have the same lines, asking to marry Tachibana, settle down, and have some number of children.
- Scary Teeth: Despite otherwise having the appearance of a young and attractive girl, Tachibana's new body notably has rows of sharp teeth, likely as a result of his drunken rambling in the previous life about how he wished to be an attractive girl with "sharp features". It also serves as an indicator of the bratty personality she still has beneath her seemingly innocent exterior.
- Schizo Tech: The world at large is a medieval fantasy setting, but the first dungeon the main characters come across is equipped with all sorts of out-of-place tech and there's a Humongous Mecha created by the Goddess of Love and Beauty.
- Second Law of Gender-Bending: Chapters 103 and 104 reveal that Lightning, hero for the Goddess of the Sun was a high school girl originally. Unlike Tachibana, however, this change to male was entirely his own choice after being informed of how summoned heroes get to pick their appearance.
- Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing: Tachibana's transformation is accomplished by turning him into a puddle of goo covering an Empty Piles of Clothing, then reforming with a new body in the same now-very-loose-fitting garments. The size difference is such that he has to abandon them for new clothes to move properly.
- Signature Headgear: Early in the story, Jinguuji purchases a crown for Tachibana to wear that acts as a limiter on his powers, which seduces anyone who lays eyes on him. Without it, entering any populated area would cause every man nearby to fall over themselves to woo Tachibana. Prior to obtaining the crown, he caused an entire gang of bandits to turn on one another fighting over him. The crown causes Tachibana to go largely unnoticed, so his powers only activate when someone makes a point of looking at him. Naturally, Tachibana wears the crown almost always and, whenever it's lost or removed for some reason, chaos ensues.
- So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Tachibana's female form is extremely beautiful and has passive skills that keep other people attracted to him. To some degree, Tachibana considers it Cursed with Awesome, lamenting his terrible fate while clearly enjoying every minute of all the attention he is receiving, but it does cause him genuine problems. Among the issues caused by being so beautiful is a band of thieves killing each other to be with her, and an elf chieftain fighting her and Jinguuji because she couldn't handle that there's a girl more beautiful than her. He is later selected as a sacrifice since a Squid God wanted to eat the most beautiful girl his villagers could find.
- Summon Everyman Hero: Each of the goddesses gets to choose one champion to defeat the demon king in return for a wish. They are supposed to summon people who are already dead, but Tachibana's goddess got lazy and decided to cheat. The hero that beats the demon king gets to make a second wish, which unlike the first wish can potentially include returning to life back home. As such, the less idealistic heroes have the incentive to kill off their competition.
- Super Gender-Bender: When Tachibana becomes a woman, his new form takes Attractive Bent-Gender to the point of being a literal superpower, able to elicit marriage proposals from men just by standing there and, at one point, causing an entire gang of bandits to take themselves out due to fighting over him.
- Third Law of Gender-Bending: Despite still considering himself male, most of Tachibana's clothing is feminine. Initially, this was because the only clothes they had to fit was a frilly dress (possibly something his little sister left at his apartment). Then he swaps it for what becomes his usual outfit, not minding that it includes tights and a jacket with a bow over a layered minidress. For a formal ball, he gets outright excited during a Costume-Test Montage of different dresses. (Oddly, he hated wearing a short skirt later on, as he's specifically uncomfortable showing his bare legs.)What's this... this is so fun. It is always so fun to dress up? I can keep changing clothes forever. I finally understand why girls all have a shit ton of apparel.
- Trapped in Another World: The main characters were forcibly teleported into a fantasy world and can't leave until the Demon King is dead. It's later revealed that there are 12 goddesses, all of which are choosing heroes to put them through the same thing.
- Unluckily Lucky: Tachibana having a combo of So Beautiful, It's a Curse, Walking Disaster Area, and having Jinguuji as his "unique weapon", has resulted in scenarios where he constantly gets into troublesome situations, but they always turn out alright in the end, such as a bandit attack happening right when he enters a town but said bandits turn on each other and themselves from fighting over him, saving the town.
- Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Schwarz is not happy when he realizes his first love, Tachibana, is actually a man trapped in a young girl's body.
- Vague Age: It's hard to be sure if Tachibana's new body is physically that of a teenager or a petite adult. The loose description it was based on includes being short and "young-looking", but also a "lolita". It's also an idealized body made by a literal god, so it could be completely ageless. Early on, Tachibana questions if Jinguuji and other men now attracted to him are all closeted pedophiles. Otherwise, even people unaware of Tachibana's origin mostly treat him as an adult and don't question the idea of a romance with Jinguuji or other adults.
- Walking Disaster Area: Alongside his "skill" of being So Beautiful, It's a Curse, another "skill" the goddess granted Tachibana is that everywhere he goes, trouble and disaster will spontaneously occur, such as a bandit group attacking the instant he enters a town.
