Thursday, September 14, 2006

Skip Beat, v. 1

By Yoshiko Nakamura
Published in the U.S. by Viz Shoujo Beat




Slugline: A shoujo heroine realizes that
pining after the boy is stupid. At last, one of them gets a clue!

I have to admit up front, I am not a
shoujo-loving sort of guy. Not because it is too girly or anything like that, but because it feels that so many of them use the same three plots, repeated in different backgrounds. I also like there to be not only interior challenges to the character, but exterior challenges, because I think that when a character is being tested in all ways that it is the best way to see what they are made of.

Kyoko starts the manga as one of those
girls you have seen before in a shoujo manga, but rather than redoubling her efforts when the boy rejects her, she decides to kick his ass by becoming greater than him. No shrinking violet here. Now this is still a shoujo title, with convenient coincidences and so on, but it still has a harder and more modern edge than most others. I want to see her get to track down and beat her pseudo-ex's butt! And while there is a potential new love, her focus is on herself and on revenge.

The art is pretty good, but there were a
couple times the panel layout didn't feel organic, especially in the first chapter, but other than that no major problems.



- Ferdinand

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love this series soo much. I love that this heroine has spunk and a backbone. Not to mention this series has real humor. I dunno how far along the releases are in Japan though. Well I will definitly be picking up the americam manga issues when I can find them.

Prospero's Manga said...

The series is up to volume 13 in Japan , which makes me think it is still being released, with the second US volume now available.