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Feb. 17th, 2011 11:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI was going to say, 'so I started reading Skip Beat . . .'
But uh since I just chewed through volumes 4-8 yesterday at a terrifyingly rapid clip and am now currently SCOURING THE LIBRARY SYSTEM to see if I can get my next fix from any of the libraries within walking distance on my lunch break without having to wait for them to be sent to me, I, um, I guess 'started' is not the right term anymore?
Anyway: all of you who recommended me Skip Beat, you are clearly excellent and wise, because I am already in love with so many things about it. SO MANY THINGS.
Skip Beat is about Kyoko, a sweet and hardworking doormat who dropped out of school and ran away to Tokyo to support her childhood friend super-hot budding idol Sho - except in the first chapter it turns out that Sho has just been using her while he climbs to the top, and her whole life has revolved around someone who doesn't care anything about her.
So of course Kyoko promptly swears that she will become a super-famous idol just so she can STOMPLE SHO INTO THE GROUND.
Obviously it is not so easy, but on the other hand Kyoko is a ridiculously terrifying Determinator. She will work harder than ANYONE to rise up from the top and achieve her goal! She will stalk the managers and hover menacingly in their direction until they give in! She will wear hideous uniforms! She will dress like a giant chicken! If you tell her to clean up a spot on the floor, dammit, she will polish the WHOLE HALLWAY UNTIL IT SHINES! Everyone in the industry who meets her is like, "Dang, that girl has serious guts and talent! Shame that she's basically a seething ball of vengeance-driven demonic hatred."
(Kyoko does not actually look like a chicken most of the time. BUT SHE WILL WEAR THE CHICKEN SUIT ALL THE TIME IF THAT'S WHAT IT TAKES.)
The most hilarious thing about Skip Beat is that it's basically a shonen sports story . . . about ACTING. There are rivalries and challenges and ACTING BATTLES; multiple times, people are like "the show must go on! So I will act . . . THROUGH THE PAIN OF MY BROKEN LEG!" and "I will destroy you by being SO MUCH a better actor than you that you will have no choice but to react the way I want you to in this scene! OWNED!"
Also, with all the show-biz-leveling-up exercises, I keep having highly enjoyable flashbacks to all my summers of drama camp. (I was terrible at drama camp, for the record. BUT I LOVED IT ANYWAY.)
And meanwhile there is the heartwarming story of Kyoko realizing that she's starting to love acting and show business for herself, and not just because she wants REVENGE, and also going back to school, and also: MAKING FRIENDS FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER. Kyoko's ways of making friendships are unorthodox, and go something like this:
KYOKO'S AGENCY DIRECTOR: Kyoko, if you tame my little spoiled-brat granddaughter, I will pay for your acting lessons.
KYOKO: Okay! Hey, Maria, CRYING GETS GIRLS NOWHERE IN LIFE EXCEPT SUFFERING AND HEARTBREAK.
MARIA: . . .
KYOKO: By the way, are those voodoo curse dolls that you're playing with?
MARIA: Yes . . .
KYOKO: Wanna see mine? >:D
MARIA: omg Kyoko you're so evil, YOU UNDERSTAND ME, I love you please be my big sister! *___*
KYOKO: Well, that was easy.
KYOKO'S AGENCY DIRECTOR: . . .
KYOKO: Hey Kanae, we are agency newbies together, and now that my life is not all about Sho I have realized I want girlfriends! let's be friends! let's be friends! let's be friends! :D :D :D
KANAE: How many times do I have to tell you, I do not want to be friends. WE ARE AGENCY RIVALS REMEMBER.
KYOKO: Let us overcome obstacles together and be BFF forever! :D :D :D
KANAE: Well, we can overcome this one obstacle together. One. But that does not mean we're friends.
KYOKO: :DDDDDDDD!
KANAE: . . . or maybe two obstacles. BUT THAT'S IT.
KYOKO: Let's go shopping together! I bought you ice cream!
KANAE: I guess this ice cream tastes pretty good.
KYOKO: That's because it tastes like ~*~friendship~*~ >:D >:D >:D
(Seriously, Kyoko's determination to become friends with Kanae is hilariously adorable. She looooooooves her. She thinks she's so cool and awesome and talented and SHE JUST WANTS TO HAVE A BEST FRIEND, OKAY. She constructs elaborate fantasies in which they skip gleefully through the streets together! She calls her for advice, and when Kanae calls her back she forgets to actually talk into the phone because she's so busy being excited that Kanae ~*~cares~*~!)
And then of course there is the future dude love interest, Ren, BIGGEST SUPERSTAR IN JAPAN, who spends the first few volumes clutching his pearls about Kyoko's ~impure motives!~ for joining show business and being a kind of hilariously judgy troll while his manager is just like "god, your reputation is built on being cool and mature and yet I have never seen anyone react this ridiculously to having a crush." (Meanwhile, Kyoko flips him off and gives him a corner in her shrine of hatred.)
But all this hilarity aside, the basic thing is that I just really really love stories about girls who have been living for other people figuring out how to live for themselves. (Kyoko and Yoko from Twelve Kingdoms should start a CLUB.)
But uh since I just chewed through volumes 4-8 yesterday at a terrifyingly rapid clip and am now currently SCOURING THE LIBRARY SYSTEM to see if I can get my next fix from any of the libraries within walking distance on my lunch break without having to wait for them to be sent to me, I, um, I guess 'started' is not the right term anymore?
Anyway: all of you who recommended me Skip Beat, you are clearly excellent and wise, because I am already in love with so many things about it. SO MANY THINGS.
Skip Beat is about Kyoko, a sweet and hardworking doormat who dropped out of school and ran away to Tokyo to support her childhood friend super-hot budding idol Sho - except in the first chapter it turns out that Sho has just been using her while he climbs to the top, and her whole life has revolved around someone who doesn't care anything about her.
So of course Kyoko promptly swears that she will become a super-famous idol just so she can STOMPLE SHO INTO THE GROUND.
Obviously it is not so easy, but on the other hand Kyoko is a ridiculously terrifying Determinator. She will work harder than ANYONE to rise up from the top and achieve her goal! She will stalk the managers and hover menacingly in their direction until they give in! She will wear hideous uniforms! She will dress like a giant chicken! If you tell her to clean up a spot on the floor, dammit, she will polish the WHOLE HALLWAY UNTIL IT SHINES! Everyone in the industry who meets her is like, "Dang, that girl has serious guts and talent! Shame that she's basically a seething ball of vengeance-driven demonic hatred."
(Kyoko does not actually look like a chicken most of the time. BUT SHE WILL WEAR THE CHICKEN SUIT ALL THE TIME IF THAT'S WHAT IT TAKES.)
The most hilarious thing about Skip Beat is that it's basically a shonen sports story . . . about ACTING. There are rivalries and challenges and ACTING BATTLES; multiple times, people are like "the show must go on! So I will act . . . THROUGH THE PAIN OF MY BROKEN LEG!" and "I will destroy you by being SO MUCH a better actor than you that you will have no choice but to react the way I want you to in this scene! OWNED!"
Also, with all the show-biz-leveling-up exercises, I keep having highly enjoyable flashbacks to all my summers of drama camp. (I was terrible at drama camp, for the record. BUT I LOVED IT ANYWAY.)
And meanwhile there is the heartwarming story of Kyoko realizing that she's starting to love acting and show business for herself, and not just because she wants REVENGE, and also going back to school, and also: MAKING FRIENDS FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER. Kyoko's ways of making friendships are unorthodox, and go something like this:
KYOKO'S AGENCY DIRECTOR: Kyoko, if you tame my little spoiled-brat granddaughter, I will pay for your acting lessons.
KYOKO: Okay! Hey, Maria, CRYING GETS GIRLS NOWHERE IN LIFE EXCEPT SUFFERING AND HEARTBREAK.
MARIA: . . .
KYOKO: By the way, are those voodoo curse dolls that you're playing with?
MARIA: Yes . . .
KYOKO: Wanna see mine? >:D
MARIA: omg Kyoko you're so evil, YOU UNDERSTAND ME, I love you please be my big sister! *___*
KYOKO: Well, that was easy.
KYOKO'S AGENCY DIRECTOR: . . .
KYOKO: Hey Kanae, we are agency newbies together, and now that my life is not all about Sho I have realized I want girlfriends! let's be friends! let's be friends! let's be friends! :D :D :D
KANAE: How many times do I have to tell you, I do not want to be friends. WE ARE AGENCY RIVALS REMEMBER.
KYOKO: Let us overcome obstacles together and be BFF forever! :D :D :D
KANAE: Well, we can overcome this one obstacle together. One. But that does not mean we're friends.
KYOKO: :DDDDDDDD!
KANAE: . . . or maybe two obstacles. BUT THAT'S IT.
KYOKO: Let's go shopping together! I bought you ice cream!
KANAE: I guess this ice cream tastes pretty good.
KYOKO: That's because it tastes like ~*~friendship~*~ >:D >:D >:D
(Seriously, Kyoko's determination to become friends with Kanae is hilariously adorable. She looooooooves her. She thinks she's so cool and awesome and talented and SHE JUST WANTS TO HAVE A BEST FRIEND, OKAY. She constructs elaborate fantasies in which they skip gleefully through the streets together! She calls her for advice, and when Kanae calls her back she forgets to actually talk into the phone because she's so busy being excited that Kanae ~*~cares~*~!)
And then of course there is the future dude love interest, Ren, BIGGEST SUPERSTAR IN JAPAN, who spends the first few volumes clutching his pearls about Kyoko's ~impure motives!~ for joining show business and being a kind of hilariously judgy troll while his manager is just like "god, your reputation is built on being cool and mature and yet I have never seen anyone react this ridiculously to having a crush." (Meanwhile, Kyoko flips him off and gives him a corner in her shrine of hatred.)
But all this hilarity aside, the basic thing is that I just really really love stories about girls who have been living for other people figuring out how to live for themselves. (Kyoko and Yoko from Twelve Kingdoms should start a CLUB.)
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no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 04:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 05:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 05:04 pm (UTC)Also once you have run out of Skip Beat volumes you should check out Nakamura's earlier series Tokyo Crazy Paradise! It is the ~beautiful~ love story of a crossdressing bodyguard and the yakuza boy she watches out for. =D I think you'd like it.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 05:07 pm (UTC)(I approve of Kyoko's determination and friendship winning out over demons of hate! ON THE OTHER HAND THE DEMONS OF HATE ARE SO HILARIOUS. The Sho's-music-video arc is basically one of the funniest things I have ever read in my life.)
no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 05:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 05:46 pm (UTC)The fact that she can switch on the turn of a dime into SUPER CARE BEAR (generally Moko-directed) STARE makes it EVEN BETTER.
Why does LJ hate me and make me start all over?
Date: 2011-02-17 08:03 pm (UTC)I was going to modify that with female when I realized that most of the characters that reduce me to a messy puddle of joy are female anyway.
Also, Kyoko/Skip Beat in general are the top of my list of favorites regardless and so are stories about girls making friends and learning to live for themselves.
I was going to say something else but I can't really remember what I had written thanks to LJ.
LJ is often terrible like that :(
Date: 2011-02-17 08:10 pm (UTC)(And hahaha, yes - I am way more inclined to imprint ridiculously on ladies than on dudes. Perhaps it is cosmic compensation for all the people who do it the other way round!)
Re: LJ is often terrible like that :(
Date: 2011-02-17 08:26 pm (UTC)Oh! I just remembered what I was going to say before. The phrase "basically a shonen sports story ... about acting" is pretty much perfect. I was going to say it'll stick in my head but that would be ironic given the circumstances.
Re: LJ is often terrible like that :(
Date: 2011-02-17 09:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 08:25 pm (UTC)(And I was totally think of you while reading. >.> In fact I am officially adding "ACTING BATTLE! in which I will force the person I hate to REACT THE WAY I WANT TO THE POWER OF MY ACTING!" to the list of things that are inevitably going to happen to you at some point before you graduate.)
no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 12:43 am (UTC)It may be a sign of how right you are, how insane I am, or how truly messed up my life is that I cannot find that implausible.
For the record, I'm picturing, "THE ACTING-- IT'S TOO ... GOOD ...! CAN'T RESIST!"
no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 05:34 am (UTC)Also:
(For the record, yes, he IS dressed as a demon in pointy ears and black leather. She is dressed as an angel. Her role in the scene is to choke him to death. >:D)
no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 08:43 pm (UTC)(Except for Kanae. Obviously bitterness should always disappear around Kanae. It can hang out around Maria because they bond over it.)
no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 09:21 pm (UTC)(But yes, Kanae brings out Kyoko's sunshine and rainbows and fairy tales and friendship-flavored ice cream. Largely because Kanae switches things around by sheer force of demanding to be the cranky bitter one!)
no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 09:07 pm (UTC)I recommend the anime, by the by. It's pretty good adaptation of the manga--just, y'know, shorter. BUT KYOKO'S VOICE ACTRESS IS THE MOST AMAZING. SHE IS PERFECTION.
I am pretty much salivating waiting for each chapter release.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 09:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 09:54 pm (UTC)*points at icon* Teh Kyoko.
ETA: Oh but I must warn that it is NOT available in America--not licensed. So it can only be seen online.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 09:58 pm (UTC)That . . . is not usually a problem for me. >.>
no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 04:18 am (UTC)(oh my god, in a review of Skip Beat they used the phrase "Kyoko cuts off all her hair and torpedoes into showbiz leaving broken phones and thunderstruck managers in her wake." BEST DESCRIPTION EVER.)
no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 09:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 10:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 10:37 pm (UTC)There's also the fact I also have a love for stories where lady character start living for themselves and not others.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 10:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 11:44 pm (UTC)...the end.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 04:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 01:52 am (UTC)Love how I even pretend to frame this in "YOU GET A CHOICE! :D!"? It means we are True Friends! :D Would you like a voodoo doll as an IOU? :D?
no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 04:42 am (UTC)(hahahaha Feather, I have actually just gotten to the bit in the manga where Kyoko GIVES Kanae a curse doll OF KYOKO to carry around. To protect her from evil spirits! Creepiest bff gift ever. *___*)
no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 02:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 02:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 04:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 04:44 am (UTC)- although, hey, let us not shortchange Maria, whose friendship with Kyoko is RIDICULOUSLY INTERESTING AND ADORABLE and who was pretty much starry-eyed about her from the get-go.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 05:02 am (UTC)Every time Kyoko's demons shrivel up and die in the presence of Ren's OVERWHELMING SPARKLES, I crack up - and wish someone would send Stephanie Meyer a copy.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 05:05 am (UTC)I just find his judgyfaces SO HILARIOUS. That's right, Ren, you sit on your high horse!
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Date: 2011-02-18 05:20 am (UTC)Ren's high horse just makes it all the more hilarious when he falls off it later - EPICALLY.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 05:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 04:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 05:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 05:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 04:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 04:54 am (UTC)Buuut due to judicious library-stalking during my lunch break today I kind of suspect I'll be two or three more volumes further along by tomorrow >.>
no subject
Date: 2011-02-20 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-20 03:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 05:39 pm (UTC)I didn't like Ren at first, but now that he's completely baffled by Kyoko and basically realizing he loses to Moko all the time, he is kind of hilarious and adorkable.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 05:48 pm (UTC)(I also find his manpain kind of hilarious. That's right, Ren, you run away from your ~*~terrible supportive family life~*~ and ~*~sinister dark side~*~!)
The scene where Moko is super excited about WINNING over Ren's birthday gift is one of my favorites, not just in this manga, but possibly in any manga.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 05:50 pm (UTC)OMG Moko winning over Ren is one of my FAVORITE SCENES EVER!!! As is the entire sequence in which Moko tries to not buy Kyoko and present and ends up grumpily succumbing! (Actually, most of vol. 20 is my favorite, hahaha.)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 06:00 pm (UTC)HAHAHA YES. When she storms away and then storms back and storms away again and imagines Kyoko's face of glee and storms back vehemently cursing the world, and Kyoko, and herself, and the all-consuming POWER OF FRIENDSHIP to which she has mysteriously succombed. (All of volume 20 is pretty much my favorite too! It is like the best parts of all the relationships in one awesome package.)