I am Smart

It's a fun read, the translation is great, and our main character is hilarious. I'm definitely craving more chapters as I write this.

So, essentially, the main character's primary challenge is that she wakes up one day with symptoms akin to severe brain damage, transforming from a 200 IQ genius to someone who can only lick a swingset overnight.

The intriguing aspect is how the narrative describes her decline in intelligence. Instead of suddenly becoming stupid and acting foolishly, thinking too hard causes her excruciating pain, and she quickly learns to avoid deep thoughts. For instance, there’s a scene early on where she attempts to add two four-digit numbers in her head and nearly faints from the intense headache. This leads her to become a 'no thoughts, head empty' airhead in a very believable manner—her intelligence isn’t simply erased; it’s too painful to use, so she stops trying.

However, in return, she acquires near-superhuman athletic abilities. Not physical strength, but the kind of skills that come from a different brain configuration. She develops incredible kinetic vision, flawless hand-eye coordination, extremely precise fine motor skills, and near-precognitive spatial awareness. Her aim is dead-on, and she has a keen intuition like that of an apex predator. All these are mental and perceptual athletic skills.

I find it really impressive how the author makes the process of becoming less intelligent sound so plausible and logically consistent throughout. The way the "all brawn, no brains" aspect manifests is also primarily a mental change.

Simultaneously, as she grapples with the steep decline in her cognitive abilities, she also deals with an involuntary sex change and all the mental and physical consequences of waking up as a girl one day. She has to buy pads and hair ties. Her taste buds change, and she no longer enjoys her favorite foods. She now has an insatiable sweet tooth. Her hormones are all over the place, leading to subtle personality changes. Impulse control, which used to be easy, becomes a struggle (hormones play a crucial role in decision-making), and she gets addicted to video games and loses the ability to manage her finances (she spends it all on her sweet tooth). Her social circle shifts as she feels more comfortable hanging out with other girls. Men catcall her on the street. She loses some job opportunities but gains others. And so on.

The story seamlessly incorporates numerous "her life is different because she's a woman now" moments, slipping them in so casually that you barely notice. This is something many gender-bender stories fail to achieve; often, they might as well have started with a female character, rendering the gender-bending tag almost pointless. But this story genuinely explores the gender changes and handles them gracefully.

While I wouldn’t claim that the portrayal is entirely realistic or accurate to real-life scenarios, I can confidently say it is convincing. Everything is presented in a believable, logical, and plausible manner, with well-thought-out details that make the transformation convincing. The transitions are so smooth that you don’t even question them while reading. I believe the author did an excellent job depicting how she adapts to her core identity changing in various ways, and I wanted to leave a review to highlight and appreciate this craftsmanship.

A heartwarming slice-of-life story. Despite clear signs of dysphoria, the main character couldn’t care less and readily indulges in their newfound, peculiar urges.

Here’s a revised version of the synopsis:

The protagonist, a highly intelligent individual with numerous accolades for their academic achievements, wakes up one day to find themselves transformed into a completely different person. Everything around them changes to match this new identity, as if they had always been this new person—photos and documents now reflect their new appearance and name. In their new form, they seem to embody the "brawny idiot" archetype, struggling with tasks they once performed effortlessly.

I'd like to preface this review by saying that I actually really enjoyed the novel's early chapters and would have rated it a solid 10/10 if it continued in that direction.

A basic synopsis is that our protagonist (originally male, quite smart, not particularly blessed physically) suddenly wakes up as a girl who is significantly less gifted intellectually but compensated for with a significant boost in physical attributes and some new hobbies and altered tastes. I loved how the author approached the protagonist's identity dissonance.

For instance, our protagonist (as of chapter 30) is still in heavy denial that she loves her teddy bears or that she is a gaming addict. She also tries desperately to cling to her past academic achievements from before the transformation, such as mentioning she was a top student at Korea University.

This is an aspect that I feel isn't focused on or elaborated enough in gender-bending (GB) works, and it's done excellently here. Also, the way the author wrote about the drastic drop in cognitive capabilities was great. The idea that, while our protagonist could still theoretically perform the same calculations or similar thought processes as before, it now hurts her head to do so and takes much longer than it used to. Meanwhile, her past acquired knowledge is still intact (e.g., when she was asked some history/trivia questions by a viewer and answered perfectly). This makes it feel more natural (as natural as waking up as a girl one morning could be, I suppose).

The earlier chapters (I'd say around the first 20) focused primarily on these changes and how our protagonist learns about each of them and adapts or makes changes to her daily routine and spending habits to accommodate these new aspects of her life. It's a slice of life without much real plot development, but it was still a great read as a GB and slice-of-life (SoL) enthusiast, and I would've personally liked for it to continue in this direction, allowing her to discover more about her new self or delve deeper into her newly acquired hobbies.

With all that said, why did I give it 4/5 stars? It's because the primary focus shifts quite quickly from the gender-bending and other transformations to the protagonist's involvement in livestreaming content (around the chapter 20 mark or so). While I'm aware that it is one of the tags in the work, the synopsis doesn't give you a clear idea of how much livestreaming is actually involved in the plot. As of chapter 30, it seems it will be almost entirely the focus of the novel from here on out.

It's quite disappointing for me personally as the livestreaming content doesn't interest me much. It's not really something unique or new, nor is it particularly well-executed here. (Off the top of my head, I can think of at least three other Korean GB novels that also focus heavily on livestreaming... What is up with that?) It also detracts from the potential to explore more of the aspects I mentioned earlier, as streaming and gaming take up a huge amount of her time.

It's mentioned that she logged around 300+ hours of playtime within a month in the game. Assuming she started playing on the first day of a 30-day month, that's an average of 10 hours per day, on top of having a part-time job. Pure insanity.

Also, honestly, I have absolutely no interest in (what seems to be) a League of Legends-type game described in this novel. Half the explanations go in one ear and out the other for me. I really only went in wanting to read a GB novel, not to learn about gaming tactics for a LoL ripoff.

The interactions with her stream viewers actually aren't half-bad; I'll give the author that. However, I would've much preferred to see more focus on her real-life interactions, which feel more personal and not so superficial as the viewer chats.

For example, I really enjoyed the chapter where our protagonist spent time at the arcade with her co-worker Lee Daram or the chapters where she visits the doll shop and interacts with the boy who works there and makes the dolls. These chapters alone were much more interesting than all the chapters where she livestreamed combined.

Alas, it seems that isn't the direction the author is taking the work. Perhaps it's a little early to judge, as it seems the raws (as of the time of writing) have about 118 chapters, and maybe the focus does shift back to the GB and other transformation aspects later. However, skimming up to chapter 33 (the latest translation available on NovelUpdates), I can't foresee that, and I'll have to leave a 4-star rating. If I had known how much livestreaming and gaming would take center stage, I probably wouldn't have started reading at all.

Tl;dr - Livestreaming is a big part of this novel. If you like that content, great! Read on. If you don't (like me), don't bother. You will only experience disappointment.