Skip Beat 14

The romance is ratcheted way up in this volume.  Again.  This time, Ren’s manager is basically acknowledging it to Ren’s face that he likes Kyoko, and the manager gives him pointers and generally tries to needle him into action.  There’s quite a bit of inner dialogue from Ren on the subject too, which surprised me.  Kyoko though… Kyoko is still not really… with it.  I swear, when these two get together, it will be one of the best moments in shoujo manga history.  I’m pretty sure they’re still not together in the current serialization in Japan, too.  I mean, we would have heard, because we would have heard the simultaneous shriek of every female holding the current issue of Flowers and Dreams all the way from here.  It’s really the waiting that makes this couple good.  I don’t think I would enjoy the series nearly as much if they had hooked up in volume 7 or so, because all the acting stuff, while enjoyable, is very much a part of their developing relationship, and wouldn’t do so well as the main focus of the series.  I don’t even think relationship turmoil is quite as good as the two of them not being together.

But we get turmoil anyway, and it tastes great.  You remember Shotaro?  Oh, he’s back.  Somehow, he and Kyoko are now… running into each other more frequently.  Kyoko also seems to be doing him a favor.  In addition to the Ren thing, even now, after 13 volumes of Kyoko tearing Sho apart and really, for good reason, because he’s a jerk of the highest order… if he becomes viable, I don’t know that I could handle it.

There’s also a new character introduced that’s either going to be an antagonist for Kyoko or a romantic interest.  Either way, he’s a bigger jerk than Sho, so I’m not sure at this point.

I should also mention that I still enjoy the visual gags in this series immensely.  The curse Kyokos are back out in full force since Sho has reappeared, but even better are some of the visual puns.  I like seeing puns, and I especially like seeing puns that are translated seamlessly into English.  There’s a pun on a band name in this volume accompanied by a visual gag.  I kind of think the pun was originally in English anyway, because it’s just too perfect, but if it’s not, whoever came up with the English version should treat themselves to a nice dinner.  There’s also a handful of other really great visual gags that are too hard to explain without showing them, but take my word for it: they were of the highest quality.

Once again, Skip Beat is the finest shoujo crack money can buy currently.  I’m just sorry I didn’t pick it up sooner.