Maki Kisaragi is an Ordinary High-School Student who dreams of becoming a "beautiful housewife" when she grows up. She's a simple girl with a simple dream. Hence, her life must be easy—right?
WRONG.
Maki's life is anything but normal — she's the grand daughter of the current leader of the Kisaragi Clan with a violent Split Personality who often wreaks havoc while she's unconscious. And to make things worse, her grandfather got hospitalised, forcing her to act as the clan's temporary leader.
With her life seemingly surrounded by constant violence and criminal activities, Maki's dreams of becoming normal will not be easy.
W-Change!! is a shonen manga by Hiro Matsuba, which was serialized in Comic Blade from 2006 to 2008 and compiled into six volumes. Not to be confused with Change 123, another Shōnen fighting manga involving a female lead with a Split Personality.
This manga provides examples of:
- Action Girl: Maki, whose dark side is extremely strong and violent.
- Alternate Identity Amnesia: Maki cannot recall her actions and experiences when her dark side manifests.
- Ax-Crazy: Maki's third personality is the most sadistic and violent side of her character, who will not hesitate to kill anyone who stands in her way, and actually takes delight in seeing bloodshed.
- Badass Bookworm: Fukama is one of the top students in his school and a member of the student council. He is also one of the best fighters in the series, being able to go toe-to-toe against Maki.
- Big Bad: Kyoji Fujishiro, the leader of the new Shirofuji clan, is the one behind the drug dealings that drives the story's main conflict.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Sayaka, who pretends to be a sweet and gentle transfer student to gain connection with the Kokushin heir, Fukama, and later Maki. Behind that façade, she's a cruel and selfish bitch who abuses her power as the daughter of the former head of the Shirofuji clan to mistreat her subordinates.
- Black-and-Grey Morality: The sides involved in the conflict are Yakuza, so they're not exactly the nicest people out there, but the antagonists are seen as more corrupt due to their dabbling in drug trafficking and bribery.
- Cain and Abel: Sayaka (Abel) spends most of her life trying to ruin her older brother, Kyoji (Cain), and stop his evil drug-trafficking operation. Somewhat downplayed in that Sayaka wasn't entirely innocent at first, and was only trying to get in her brother's way as a petty form of Sibling Rivalry.
- Cowboy Cop: Inverted with Yamashita Tokichiro, a police officer who refuses to be bought by Shirofuji's conspiracy and defies his higher-up's order to dig deeper into the clans' conflict on his own.
- Damsel in Distress: Sayaka got kidnapped by Tsukishima and was used as a hostage to trade for the diskette she stole from him (and, by extension, the clan).
- The Determinator: Not even being shot four times will stop Wakasugi from rescuing Sayaka.
- Disappeared Dad: Maki's father disappeared a long time before the events of the manga, leaving Maki to become the sole heir of the Kisaragi clan when her grandfather becomes temporarily invalid. He came back in Volume 5, though.
- The Dragon: Hayakawa is Kyoji Fujishiro's second-in-command, being in charge of most of the group's drug dealing operations.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Most of the clans, such as the Kisaragi and Kokushin, refuse to deal with drug trafficking, despite being fine with other forms of violence. The fact that the new Shirofuji clan dabbles with such operations is the reason why they're considered so evil.
- Evil Parents Want Good Kids: Sayaka's father, the previous leader of the Shirofuji Clan, does not wish his daughter to get involved with the clan and wants her to live a good and honest life. There might be a Double Standard here, since he had no such sentiments for his son.
- The Glasses Come Off: Fukama always takes off his glasses whenever he takes up his role as the Kokushin heir, or when he's preparing for a fight.
- Good Eyes, Evil Eyes: Maki's eyes become considerably narrower when she transforms into her "dark personality". And when her "third personality" takes over, her pupils become dots.
- The Heavy: While the Shirofuji clan is led by Kyoji, he mostly remain in the background in the earlier chapters, while his second-in-command Hayakawa takes care of the bulk of their drug dealing operations (which is one of the story's major conflict). Subverted when gets heavily injured at the end of volume 5, forcing him to withdraw from the main action.
- Heel Realization: Sayaka realizes how dark the Yakuza path is after Wakasugi is killed in front of her.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners:
- Maki and Tomoka are very close and almost always hang out together when Fukama is not around. Moka is also the only person who knows about Maki's "dark side" without being affiliated to the Yakuza.
- Fukama is best friends with Tachibana. The two had apparently known each other since childhood, and Tachibana is currently serving as the leader of a biker's gang owned by Kokushin, "Heaven's Storm".
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Maki wishes to be a normal girl and despises her violent Split Personality. Her "dark side" is not pleased this, and took over her main personality in volume 3.
- Important Haircut: Sayaka cuts off her hair after quitting her gang life.
- In Love with Your Carnage: When Kyoji Fujishiro sees Dark Maki brutally beating up his goons, his first remark is, "I like her."
- Just a Flesh Wound: Torazo considers being shot in the shoulders "just a small wound".
- Last-Name Basis: Maki still calls Fukama by his last name, despite having known him quite some time, and being in love with him enough to eventually marry him.
- Mafia Princess: Maki is the heir of the Kisaragi clan, and is revered as such by her subordinates, much to her chagrin.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When Hayakawa kills Wakasugi, most of the Skull Spider members (who are mostly just teenagers), not wanting to get too involved with the Yakuza clan's internal conflicts, tried to run away from the scene.
- Split-Personality Merge: Inverted. Maki and Dark Maki were originally one personality — with the "main" Maki representing her joy and happiness, and "dark" Maki representing her anger and sorrow — that later diverged into two separate entities, creating the "third personality" in the process. They eventually re-merged together, which means that Maki could switch from one side to the other at whim.
- Those Two Guys: Three of Maki's subordinates — Matsu, Tani and Kaji — who are mostly tasked to wake Maki up in the mornings.
- Undying Loyalty: Wakasugi will do anything to protect Sayaka from getting too involved with the clan's dirty business.
- Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Tachibana doesn't hit girls and refused to accept Black Maki's challenge for a fight because of this.
- Yakuza: The manga's main plot revolves around the conflict between Yakuza clans.
