Friday, August 24, 2012

Rosy's scrawled manga recommendation: Skip Beat by Yoshiki Nakamura

Skip Beat


Blurb
Kyouko Mogami lived solely for her childhood friend Shoutaro "Shou" Fuwa. She follows Shou to Tokyo so that he may realize his dream of becoming a famous singer. When his dream is realized, Kyouko overhears the truth behind his decision to bringing her with him: he was using her as a maid.
Shocked and enraged, Kyouko swears to take revenge by outdoing him in show business. With a new look and a new attitude, she joins LME, the agency where Ren Tsuruga (Shou's rival and the #1 actor of LME) works, in the hopes of achieving her goal of destroying Shou's pride.
Along the way, she discovers her true self, makes new friends (and enemies), and finds herself at the heart of some interesting situations that will change her life, and the lives of all others involved, forever.

Alternative Names

スキップ・ビート!; 下一站巨星

華麗的挑戰; 스킵 비트!; 이길 스킵!



Sites for reading online (free)
Manga Fox, Manga Reader


Status
Ongoing

Rosy's scawlings on Skip Beat
Do not let the happy go lucky picture above fool you. This manga is neither but in the process of revealing the nasty temper hidden or not-so-hidden inside every woman it does make you laugh quite a lot. Kyouko is more "once burned, twice shy" than most characters out there that I've run across and for that and her temper she has my undying respect. The only annoyance I have with her is that she still lets people manipulate her through her temper at times. She is still out of control and healing so I do forgive her that quite easily. It happens, does it not?
I have been greatly enjoying reading these and will continue to do so as not only has Kyouko revealed her dark side but so have the two main male characters: the old dastardly flame and the new. What I like about this is that this isn't a lovey-dovey romantic tale where the girl has to chose between two males prancing about in front of her saying "pick me, pick me!". No, the girl is actively trying to fend the men off, keeping both at as much distance as possible while trying with all her might to recover. Or should I say that there are several others trying with all their might to make her recover enough to be half way functional considering her rage.
Another thing I love about this manga is the illustrations of her rage, which peel off her in black clouds of Kyouko-esque demon heads, or are expressed through demonic eyes and a screaming mouth ready to bite her opponents head off. She's one very expressive woman even in amongst other rather expressive manga characters from other writers. To the point where she rarely looks like the above picture for being angry, wistful, loopy, lost, lonely, thoughtful etc.

I'd suggest this manga to: any woman who has a fiery temper and often blows up at men. Also any woman who's had a rat-bag for a boyfriend and been hurt. So pretty much any woman, I suppose.

Notes on manga reader sites
The quality of manga readers can vary. The uploads are often done cheaply or as a serious hobby by a collective. Be aware that sometimes licence hasn't been given but the sites noted above, Manga Fox in particular, are extremely careful about adding and pulling mangas according to license agreements. So you shouldn't have to worry too much about the material being pirated. There are also translated works and non-translated. Amongst the translated works you will find that the quality of translation may vary according to the skills of the translators. Usually the works are perfectly readable anyway, with only a few added or dropped words or a word in the incorrect tense or with/out plurals. But sometimes the text becomes gobbledygook. In which case, either seek another version or give up and buy an official copy once a printed translation comes out. The other issue of note is you may need to expand the screen to read the text easily as sometimes the scans are minimised a little.
I find that if a page doesn't download properly or some other issue occurs (too slow or someone ordered the pages incorrectly etc.) with one reader then skipping across to another reader and picking up where I was is quite easy and rarely annoying.
Otherwise, enjoy and watch out you don't get too addicted you forget about the necessary things in life.

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