Otona Ni Nuts. A hell of a ride reading that. I remember first coming across it around a decade ago in my neighbourhood bookstore that had a huge wall of Tokyopop manga and I was debating between getting the first volume of it or finishing up Natsumi Ando's Zodiac P.I. (and ultimately I chose the latter option.) So fast-forward to quarantine 2020 and me being bored out of my mind and trying to remember the Tokyopop titles I found in that bookstore so I could read them online. Instant Teen: Just Add Nuts (Tokyopop's title) was one of 'em. So I read it. And quite frankly, I regret it.

Otona Ni Nuts is, in itself, a cute, funny story idea; you've got a dumb kid who, like so many other dumb kids, wants nothing more than to grow up with haste. She's got her childhood friend who holds complicated feelings towards her and her stance, and wants her to just enjoy being a kid alongside him while they still can. But, since she's both dumb and a kid, she just can't seem to realize how much of a blessing childhood really is and ends up eating these odd genetically engineered nuts to turn her into a "sexy adult" at the most random of times and for the most absurd of reasons, from trying to seduce an older college man on a cruise ship to competing with a older masculine lady on who can be the sexiest. It's downright bonkers but that's part of it's charm.

That being said, however, the execution of the story itself in the manga was poor. It was super, SUPER rushed and all the gags and gimmicks were more fetish-y than anything. There were way too many confusing moments that came out of the blue and left me going "huh?" much too frequently for a manga of it's type and length. Also, the amount of illogical nonsense in this manga is UNBELIEVABLE (how is Natsumi's mother not questioning where the heck her daughter is skipping off to for such large periods of time? How's she letting her hang out with some wacko scientist all the damn time? If she's at public events or doing modelling while using her real name, wouldn't her parents see her? My brain hurts from all the "duhhhh")

A big chunk of the confusion came from the unfortunately sloppy art. I took a look at some of Fukushima's more recent works and it looks like that's just how her art is, but honestly the art in Otona Ni Nuts is just...not good. Even though I adore the early 00's shoujo art style generally, this simply wasn't up to par with me at all. I couldn't understand half of what was going because I literally couldn't SEE what was going on. Art that is: crowded + sloppy = recipe for a manga disaster. If I can't follow through with a story because of it's art, that automatically ruins the story for me, no matter how good the story is. And I can say for sure now that I won't be checking out any of Fukushima's other work because of this.

The characters were fine. Bland, unfunny, and not much else to them other than that they're all airheaded, rude, and shameless (especially Natsumi, flashing her rack for all to see without much thought or reprimand.) The adult characters bothered me the most, like the scientist and his tomboy lover. Why a fully grown adult would constantly go head-to-head with a literal child in a competition of sexiness is completely beyond me. But hey, manga right?

I'm a bit confused on how this was serialized as a manga for younger girls, since a lot of the moments were akin to the ecchi fanservice you get in shounen manga and anime. But I guess maybe that was supposed to be the deal-breaker here? Showing that young girls can enjoy gross humour in a coming-of-age (if you could even call this "coming-of-age") story too? If that's the case, then I'm pretty sure there are better manga out there that fit the bill. This manga also never garnered any kind of notable attention contrary to most Nakayoshi-serialized manga, but I think anyone else who read it can tell why.

In conclusion, Otona Ni Nuts is a hilariously dumb attempt at a potentially good story concept, and it's one manga I'm putting on my invisible "Store-away-in-the-dark-abyss-of-your-mind-and-never-think-about-again" list.