Manga Mondays #2: Skip Beat by Nakamura, Yoshiki

This is my Second Manga Mondays, hosted by Alison Can Read! I was horrible and forgot about it last week :( I need to get into the habit! (I almost forgot this week also, but that's what trusty to-do lists are for!)

Title: Skip Beat
Author: Nakamura, Yoshiki
Volumes: 30 and still going!
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Kyoko moves to the big city with the prince of her dreams Shotaro; he wants to make it big in the entertainment business, so she works hard at many different jobs to support him as he achieves his dream. However, one day, Kyoko accidentally discovers the horrible truth: the love of her life thinks of her as a 'plain and boring woman!' Outraged, Kyoko swears revenge - she will make it even bigger than Shotaro in the entertainment world. The only question is, how will she fulfill her desire?

Skip Beat is one of my most favourite manga's of all time. (for the record, I'm not reviewing vol.22 I just like this cover out of all of them, but I'll be reviewing my enjoyment of the series as a whole, without any spoilers!)

I'm a big fan of any manga or anime revolving around the entertainment industry or the arts and crafts, I have no idea why, it just intrigues me I guess... and I highly enjoy it!

Anyway, Skip Beat is a great manga. It is absolutely hilarious, but also has its sigh-worthy and sad moments in all the right places, the characters are amazing, the plot is fantastic and the romance is frustrating.... in a good way.

Sometimes manga can be really fast paced with the romance and other times really slow, and of course you have the perfect paced romance mixed in the middle of these... Skip Beat falls along the lines of slow paced romance... now don't let that turn you off this masterpiece, as I mentioned above, Skip Beat has a lot of other things going on, and you can understand after you witness the emotion turmoil that Kyoko has gone through with Sho that she isn't ready for any kind of romantic interest... just yet.

Basically this manga is about a sweet and innocent girl that gets betrayed by the guy that she loved and swears revenge on him. The start we see how Kyoko changes into an independent woman (the picture on the right is Kyoko throwing her old 'innocent' 'angel-like' selves at Sho after she discovers his rotten character, and that he's just using her) She decides to work hard to become a top-notch actress and make Sho pay for treating her badly.

In this process her personality becomes somewhat warped, she still has her sweet and innocent side and loves making new friends and has an obsession for make-up and all things with a fairy tale-like story, she hates love and romance and is told that she'll need to get this feeling back if she wants to become a good actress and is thrown into the 'love-me' section with other people who have the same problem that she does.

Kyoko has to do lots of odd-jobs in the 'love-me' section and is at anyone in the entertainment industries beck and call in order to regain the feeling of 'love' before being able to branch out into bigger productions. As a result of this Kyoko meets a lot of different people and makes a lot of new friends.

Tsugara Ren, is one of the most popular actor's in Japan and Sho has always seen him as a rival, which is why Kyoko wanted to work in the same company that Ren is in.

Ren makes Kyoko want to be a better actress for herself instead of for revenge because at first he looks down on her for entering show business for something so petty, and makes her want to gain his trust and approval and eventually Ren comes to see her for the hard working girl that she is and they form a friendship. Kyoko see's him more as a senpai (senior co-worker)  to look up to than anything else and watching their feelings slowly evolve is really worth the read!

It's been so hard to write this review without spoilers, because it's one of my favourites and also because so much is going on in the manga and it's really quite long and unfinished. But there you have it, a basic run-down of Skip Beat, I hope that it isn't too confusing for you all and that I've interested you into picking up this amazing manga if you haven't already!

Skip Beat
by Nakamura, Yoshiki

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