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Feb. 24th, 2016 05:46 pmI've spent the past several weeks zooming through a massive reread of Skip Beat!, my VERY FAVORITE manga about HIGHLY IMPLAUSIBLE SHOWBIZ HIJINKS!!!!
Skip Beat! stars sixteen-year-old Kyoko, who ran away from an emotionally abusive mother who doesn't care about her to go to the city with her childhood crush Sho ... only to find out that Sho ALSO is an asshole who doesn't care about her, and has just been using her to support him and cook and pay the rent so that he can Make It Big In Show Business!
KYOKO SWEARS REVENGE!!!
"Yeah, good luck with that," says Sho, "I am now a super famous pop star, you cannot get anywhere near me."
...KYOKO SWEARS TO SOMEHOW BECOME THE MOST FAMOUS PERSON IN THE JAPANESE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY AND THEN HAVE HER REVENGE!!!!!
However, as Kyoko attempts to launch herself against show business, she starts to love acting for its own sake -- and she also starts to develop goals that are about herself, and liking herself, and doing things for her own sake, rather than as an emotionally neglected kid's desperate attempt to please other people. Developing and embodying different characters becomes a way for her to embrace and come to terms with different pieces of herself!
Kyoko's character arc of self-realization and self-acceptance is incredibly satisfying, and the value of it is in no way diminished by the fact that the profession of acting, as envisioned by the author of Skip Beat!, appears to be mostly centered around incredibly method improv that leads to ACTING BATTLES!! (You win an acting battle if your acting is just so convincing and your line readings so well-calculated that the emotional impact of the scene always ends up where you want it to, regardless of whatever your scene partner thinks they're doing. Definitely normal acting stuff, right? Is this not ... how acting works .....?)
Kyoko's incredibly judgmental mentor in the SUPER SERIOUS METHOD IMPROV technique is Japan's Most Famous Heartthrob Actor, Ren Tsuruga. Alas for Ren, Kyoko has Sworn Off Love Forever Due To Her Past Traumatic Experiences, and is therefore completely oblivious that Japan's Most Famous Heartthrob Actor spends most of the series pining for her.
As a result, their romance progresses mostly through various rounds of Method Acting Chicken, which is all fun and games until the THIRTY-CHAPTER ARC when someone instructs these children to roleplay incestuous siblings as part of a job and forgets to teach them about safewords first.
(Meanwhile, as soon as Kyoko starts evidencing signs that she might have a life outside of obsessing over her hatred for Sho, Sho promptly becomes counter-obsessed with her and dedicates her life to making sure they are FOREVER NEMESES.)
Kyoko is probably one of my favorite all-time fictional characters. She's sweet, polite and respectful; she's a seething bundle of furious resentment who terrifies small children that cross her path; she loves fairies and princesses and flowers! ... and also voodoo dolls and curses; she's completely naive half the time, and completely cynical the other half the time. The only constant is that whatever she's doing, she is doing it at ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY PERCENT!!!! She's completely over-the-top in twelve different directions, but the bundle of personality contradictions at the heart of her makes her feel incredibly human.
I also love the fact that there are literally no unsympathetic female characters in Skip Beat!. Kyoko really does eventually befriend EVERY WOMAN. Her rivals are inspired by her terrifying determination! Sho's female managers LOVE HER and just want her and Sho to get back together! Her agency director's spoiled granddaughter bonds with her over curse dolls and then follows her around like a duckling! The two-faced costar who launches a vicious Mean Girl sabotage attack against her (ironically, while Kyoko is playing the villainous role of Mean Girl Natsu) -- well, Kyoko is just going to befriend her anyway:

And then, of course, there's Moko -- Kyoko's agency rival-turned-reluctant-best-friend who might actually be the real series love interest. (Moko defeating Ren for Best Giver Of Birthday Presents To Kyoko might be my favorite scene in the whole series.)
Even Kyoko's terrible mother -- well, I will talk about Kyoko's mother briefly in a spoilery follow-up post. The point of this post is, I love Skip Beat! There was a period of time when it seemed like it was going to be Ren's manpain forever when I thought I might eventually fall out of love with Skip Beat!, because Ren's manpain is super not what I am here for, but I am happy to report that is not the case. Please go on for another 300 chapters, Skip Beat! I'M ON BOARD. I'M READY.
Skip Beat! stars sixteen-year-old Kyoko, who ran away from an emotionally abusive mother who doesn't care about her to go to the city with her childhood crush Sho ... only to find out that Sho ALSO is an asshole who doesn't care about her, and has just been using her to support him and cook and pay the rent so that he can Make It Big In Show Business!
KYOKO SWEARS REVENGE!!!
"Yeah, good luck with that," says Sho, "I am now a super famous pop star, you cannot get anywhere near me."
...KYOKO SWEARS TO SOMEHOW BECOME THE MOST FAMOUS PERSON IN THE JAPANESE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY AND THEN HAVE HER REVENGE!!!!!
However, as Kyoko attempts to launch herself against show business, she starts to love acting for its own sake -- and she also starts to develop goals that are about herself, and liking herself, and doing things for her own sake, rather than as an emotionally neglected kid's desperate attempt to please other people. Developing and embodying different characters becomes a way for her to embrace and come to terms with different pieces of herself!
Kyoko's character arc of self-realization and self-acceptance is incredibly satisfying, and the value of it is in no way diminished by the fact that the profession of acting, as envisioned by the author of Skip Beat!, appears to be mostly centered around incredibly method improv that leads to ACTING BATTLES!! (You win an acting battle if your acting is just so convincing and your line readings so well-calculated that the emotional impact of the scene always ends up where you want it to, regardless of whatever your scene partner thinks they're doing. Definitely normal acting stuff, right? Is this not ... how acting works .....?)
Kyoko's incredibly judgmental mentor in the SUPER SERIOUS METHOD IMPROV technique is Japan's Most Famous Heartthrob Actor, Ren Tsuruga. Alas for Ren, Kyoko has Sworn Off Love Forever Due To Her Past Traumatic Experiences, and is therefore completely oblivious that Japan's Most Famous Heartthrob Actor spends most of the series pining for her.
As a result, their romance progresses mostly through various rounds of Method Acting Chicken, which is all fun and games until the THIRTY-CHAPTER ARC when someone instructs these children to roleplay incestuous siblings as part of a job and forgets to teach them about safewords first.
(Meanwhile, as soon as Kyoko starts evidencing signs that she might have a life outside of obsessing over her hatred for Sho, Sho promptly becomes counter-obsessed with her and dedicates her life to making sure they are FOREVER NEMESES.)
Kyoko is probably one of my favorite all-time fictional characters. She's sweet, polite and respectful; she's a seething bundle of furious resentment who terrifies small children that cross her path; she loves fairies and princesses and flowers! ... and also voodoo dolls and curses; she's completely naive half the time, and completely cynical the other half the time. The only constant is that whatever she's doing, she is doing it at ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY PERCENT!!!! She's completely over-the-top in twelve different directions, but the bundle of personality contradictions at the heart of her makes her feel incredibly human.
I also love the fact that there are literally no unsympathetic female characters in Skip Beat!. Kyoko really does eventually befriend EVERY WOMAN. Her rivals are inspired by her terrifying determination! Sho's female managers LOVE HER and just want her and Sho to get back together! Her agency director's spoiled granddaughter bonds with her over curse dolls and then follows her around like a duckling! The two-faced costar who launches a vicious Mean Girl sabotage attack against her (ironically, while Kyoko is playing the villainous role of Mean Girl Natsu) -- well, Kyoko is just going to befriend her anyway:

And then, of course, there's Moko -- Kyoko's agency rival-turned-reluctant-best-friend who might actually be the real series love interest. (Moko defeating Ren for Best Giver Of Birthday Presents To Kyoko might be my favorite scene in the whole series.)
Even Kyoko's terrible mother -- well, I will talk about Kyoko's mother briefly in a spoilery follow-up post. The point of this post is, I love Skip Beat! There was a period of time when it seemed like it was going to be Ren's manpain forever when I thought I might eventually fall out of love with Skip Beat!, because Ren's manpain is super not what I am here for, but I am happy to report that is not the case. Please go on for another 300 chapters, Skip Beat! I'M ON BOARD. I'M READY.