Pretty Face

The devil is what he's supposed to look like.

"Where panty shots are the last thing you want!"

—Closing line on the back cover

Masashi Randoh is short, loud, arrogant, captain of the karate club, winner of the national karate championship, and possessor of nearly monster-like strength. On his way back from the Hokkaido Karate Tournament, he is involved in a fiery bus crash, which leaves him in a coma. A year later, he wakes up to find himself still alive, but with a completely reconstructed face, since the crash burnt off most of the original.

Unfortunately for Randoh, the surgeon who did it modelled his new face on the photograph in his pocket - a photograph of Randoh's unrequited crush, Kurimi Rina. While trying to fix matters, he is mistaken for Rina's missing identical twin, Yuna; and thus begins his new life.

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Tropes used in Pretty Face include:

• Amusing Injuries: Inflicted by Randoh on Dr. Manabe with regularity.
• Attractive Bent Gender: Even though only Rando's face was changed by the surgery, he is way too cute for a guy...
  • The surgery may have only changed his face, but he also became really skinny and petite from his muscles atrophying while he recovered (granted, muscle atrophy doesn't quite work like that).
• Bifauxnen: Though Randoh-as-Yuna wears feminine clothing, all the girls and boys remark on her masculine behavior... and find it extremely cute.
  • Randoh thought Natsuo was a boy when he unknowingly trained her at a young age.
• Born Lucky: Randoh experiences just too many happy coincidences that allow him to keep his secret against rising odds throughout the manga (only three people, including Manabe, know it in the end, not counting the random perverts).
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Randoh. The most notable example occurs during one of Rina's flashbacks where he rips a street sign out of the cement ground and uses it to break open a section of concrete slab to rescue a trapped dog... Then he got arrested for destroying public property.
• Cute Bruiser: Randoh wasn't one before his accident, but during his year long coma his body thinned out, giving him the appearance of a petite high school girl. His physical prowess seems negligibly effected.
• Cut Short: Sadly, the manga was discontinued after just six volumes, with many minor narrative threads (like the fate of Randoh's family) Left Hanging. There was also an earlier problem with Nozomi, since a plot arc involving her was Put on a Bus due to time constraints.
• Downer Ending: An alternate ending reveals that the entire manga was Randoh's Dying Dream, but thankfully, the real ending is much brighter.
  • In fact, the Downer Ending parodies itself - Manabe gets kicked in the face again while Randoh yells at him for making it too Grimdark.
• Dropped a Bridget On Him: In one chapter, a Dirty Old Man feels up Randoh's leg during a stay at a supposedly haunted onsen, realizes he's a guy, and promptly gets the stuffing beat out of him. It happens in an earlier chapter (though it's because of "Yuna"'s flatness).
  • Dropped on Natsuo after she pulls down "her" skirt and panties, having suspected "Yuna" of being a guy. And then there's Manabe getting rid of Sachiko by pretending he's into trannies, and showing off "Yuna"'s dick to her.
• Easy Sex Change: Dr. Manabe acts like this is the case when he tries to pitch it to Randoh (which is every time they interact). Randoh knows better.
  • Heck, Randoh wakes up just as Manabe was about to perform one on him.
• Fridge Logic: Invoked. The alternate ending was to have Randoh's actual family revealed as getting surgery from Manabe and winding up as Kurumi's family, but the creator dropped it for this trope when he released he'd leave too many plot thread hanging ("Rina" being able to deceive her friends, Randoh's parents knowing about Yuna's run away, blah blah blah..
• Gender Bender: Randoh... technically. He keeps his gems and pecker, and his body mass slimmed down to insanely girly lengths.
• Handsome Lech: Dr. Manabe, who is all over "Yuna" and very eager to finish the sex-change. Randoh is not appreciative.
• Imagine Spot - Rina kissing Yuna in a dream (which promptly scares the shit out of Randoh), getting caught in the ladies' bathroom (and having Rina and most of the school petition for the death penalty while he's in jail), and Natsuo revealing "Yuna" is really Randoh, which results in Rina rejecting Randoh, getting the death penalty (via firing squad), and then getting sex changed for real.
• Indirect Kiss: Randoh names this trope specifically when he realizes that some chap stick that Rina let him use may have been used by Rina herself.
  • Rina kisses a photo of Yuna underneath the Graduation Tree (it's school superstition that a kiss will make two people stay together forever).
• Latex Perfection: Various fake breasts and body suits invented by Dr. Manabe. And the final twist: "I couldn't cut into that adorable face!" So Dr. Manabe puts on a very realistic Randoh mask over Randoh's Yuna face instead.
• Love Triangle: Randoh, Rina, and then Nozomi. Then Natsuo. Then Nozomi comes back...
• Love At First Punch: Everyone in the Karate club falls for "Yuna" and makes a cult following for her after Randoh beats them all up in the first chapter.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Randoh. He's arrogant and jumps to violence easily, but he also has a thing for saving people or small animals.
• Mad Doctor: Dr. Manabe is utterly insane.
• Magic Plastic Surgery: Thankfully, the author didn't fail biology and pointed out the dangers of multiple facial surgeries.
• Meaningful Name: Yuna and Rina. Just think about it for a second...
• Megaton Punch - Randoh to anyone that pisses him off (i.e.: Manabe)
• Measuring Day: Randoh goes to great lengths to avoid it... in vain, since Manabe is the doctor performing the checkup.
• Murder the Hypotenuse - Parodied. When the real Yuna finds out Randoh's secret and runs off absolutely furious at him and intending to tell her family, Manabe suggests they resolve it in a peaceful manner... and hands a grinning Randoh an axe, only to get beaten up again for even thinking that.
• One-Sided Arm Wrestling - Used to hilarious effect when Randoh enters a tournament, post-surgery. Everyone expects the petite girl to lose gracefully. He throws the guy.
• Panty Shot: Thankfully, none from Randoh. (You would have gotten one in a cut chapter.) Natsuo, on the other hand, has the accidental panty shot as her curse in life.
• Psycho Lesbian: Nozomi would go to great lengths to get Randoh (as Yuna) into her bed.
• Put on a Bus - Nozomi, but she's brought back later.
• Running Gag: Doc Manabe going off about performing a full sex-change operation on Randoh, often as a threat or fantasy, followed by him getting kicked.
• Schoolgirl Lesbians: Nozomi is unflinching about her affection towards Randoh/Yuna (and later, Natsuo; she calls both "Onee-Sama", too), even when confronted about its abnormality by other students. Also, Keiko Does Not Like Men, but even she's creeped out by Nozomi.
• Shout-Out - To Galaxy Express 999 in a short joke, and The Ring, in the form of the Scary Stalker stalking Manabe.
  • Randoh has an Imagine Spot when he first meets Nozomi in the style of Mari Mite. With roses and sparkles and everything.
  • The gang members that keep following "Yuna" around are nicknamed The Three Stooges. (In the translation, at least. It may be a shoutout to Love Hina.)
• Secret Test of Character: The real Yuna gives Randoh a particularly tough one: to prove he loved Rina, he had to agree to be have his face changed back to Yuna's irreversibly to comfort Rina while the real Yuna goes to school (as it turns out, it is reversible as it was never changed back in the first place).
• She's All Grown Up: We're shown a flashback of Natsuo as a kid, and apparently Randoh mistook her for a boy. Nobody would make that mistake now.
• Stalker with a Crush: Dr. Manabe has to avoid Sadako in a later chapter.
• Stupid Sexy Flanders: The whole series, but Chapter 7 is the worst, especially when one of the earlier pages of said chapter is a loving shot of a shirtless Randoh with his first set of fake breasts on, which are also much larger than his later ones.
• Tsundere: Randoh as Yuna (much of the hate directed at people getting too close to Rina, and... Manabe, of course), and later, Yukie.
• Twincest: It is purely platonic, but Rina does develop a bit more than sisterly feelings towards "Yuna", not knowing that "she" is actually her original crush.
  • Ship Tease gets common - she kisses a photo of "her" underneath the Graduation Tree, so they'll stay together forever, she mutters her name in her sleep, and is extremely clingy. In the omake, she accidentally kisses Randoh when she slips while doing the dishes.
• Twin Switch: Randoh and Rina pull one off in the final chapters. In a less deliberate form, it happens with Randoh and the real Yuna throughout the entire story. When the real Yuna comes back, this unintentionally happens
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Randoh himself.