Beauty Pop 10
Posted: March 25, 2009 Filed under: Beauty Pop 7 Comments »Unfortunately, this is one of those series that was hard to jump into because it has a ton of characters and things are a bit hard to sort out. Plus, this was the final volume, so the story was wrapping up and it’s definitely not a place for a new reader to start.
I’ve wanted to read this series for awhile now, though. It has novelty in its concept in the same way that V.B. Rose, a series about a girl that makes wedding dresses, does. In this case, Kiri is a gifted hair stylist, and she’s drawn into a group of three boys who are really popular around school for their ability to do spot makeovers to random girls. It’s an unusual theme, to be sure.
Apparently in this volume, Kiri has joined up with the three boys (who call themselves the “Scissors Project”) along with a few other random characters in order to enter into some sort of stylist tournament. Apparently they need to win in order to save Kiri’s house (?). Their team is sabotaged both at the contest and at an individual level when Kiri apparently has her special scissors stolen by a boy she knows (?).
Mysteriously, when all is said and done, Kiri moves away, which allows for drama between her and Narumi. Narumi apparently likes her but never told her. In fact, the pair seems to be of the type that are constantly yelling at one another comically but are clearly in love. I don’t actually like this type of romance that much, especially since Kiri seems like kind of a chilly match for the boy. But there you go.
There’s a great “ten years later”-type scene at the end. I always love these, even when I have no idea what’s going on.
I feel like I should point out that there is a page of really cute stickers in the front of the book, something I haven’t seen before in other Shojo Beat manga (or any other manga, for that matter). It made me want to get the rest of the series that much more.
I’ll likely go back to the beginning, even knowing full well I probably won’t enjoy the couple. The series seemed much more focused on the styling elements and friendship than romance though, which might be interesting. It’s not something I feel compelled to rush out and buy, but I’ll probably go back for it eventually, especially since it’s only 10 volumes long. That’s pretty short for a shoujo series.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
I like the Beauty Pop series, but I do note that it has one thing in common with Ouran High School Host Club, which is that all the reviewers loved the heroine when she was stoic and wasn’t really interested in anyone, but when the heroine does start showing interest, they got very upset. Perhaps forgetting that this is, y’know, a shoujo manga. :)
[...] and 2 of Akihabara@Deep (Manga Recon) Connie on vol. 26 of Basara (Slightly Biased Manga) Connie on vol. 10 of Beauty Pop (Slightly Biased Manga) Unnamed Guest Reviewer on vols. 1-4 of Black Lagoon (Manga Recon) Connie on [...]
It’s one of my favourite series! I was dubious before I started (how could hair cutting be interesting for 10 books?) but it’s actually really good :)
I’m surprised to hear that people prefer the stoic Haruhi. For me, it was just the opposite, I like her a lot more when she’s responding to Tamaki. I actually got to the point where I couldn’t stand that series until more romantic things started happening in the fifth volume. I have to have romance in my shoujo manga, that’s just how it is.
Does the main character in this one have her girly moments? It just seemed odd to me that the romance element came to a climax without her showing much emotion.
I have to say, I was a bit taken aback by the stylist competition. I wouldn’t have guessed cutting hair could have such edge-of-the-seat thrills like that. But the parts with the random makeovers, with the main character doing random makeovers of her own (there’s a short story in the back that I assume is more like the rest of the series) seems like good stuff.
Well, this series might have been spoiled a bit for you by reading the 10th volume first. I just read first two volumes and I loved it! Truth to say, it was a big surprised for me how much I enjoyed reading this because I despise cutting hair, hehe.. But really, the art is cute and the main heroine is just adorable with her attitude. Oh, BTW, I really don’t like Ouran Host Club.. ;-)
Meh, I like Ouran, but I have a hard time recommending it to people since I didn’t actually like it until five volumes in. If I’d have known that, I probably wouldn’t have ever picked it up, as much as I’m addicted to some of the later parts.
I probably will go back to this one once I finish up some of the shorter shoujo series I’m reading. It was pretty cute, and I did like the fact it was about hair cutting (I’m like you though, I don’t actually enjoy the activity or appreciate its finer points… and haven’t had a haircut myself in about a dozen years). It seems to be pretty popular, so I’m sure I’ll enjoy it if I start from the beginning.