Skip Beat 23

Yoshiki Nakamura – Viz – 2011 – 28+ volumes

I like this series so much! It really is one of my favorites. This volume is a few months old at this point, but whenever I pick it up to review it, I re-read it and run out of time to write it up, because I’m sad like that. The next volume just came out though, and I’ve read this volume enough times that I can’t put it off anymore.

But I still read it again today.

It’s just so mean-spirited in an extremely happy way. I’m not quite sure how to describe it aside from that. People make fun of Kyoko, both to her face and in their thoughts, almost constantly, but Kyoko also isn’t the kind of person to take bullying lying down, or to change her habits because people think she’s silly. I love that she blatantly ignores things she doesn’t want to hear. I love that she can barely contain these depressing, truly frightening personae that make up her personality and basically brushes off her disturbing behavior whenever asked. And yet, for all that, she’s still basically a happy teenage girl that’s overly polite to one another and just wants to be an actress. That Skip Beat can pull all this off is what makes it so special.

This volume contains one of the most disturbing bullying scenes I’ve ever seen in a manga. It’s truly uncomfortable stuff, and Kyoko is at the head of it. Chiori continues to let her feelings of resentment towards Kyoko fester and manifest themselves in minor bullying incidents, but things come to a head when she pushes Kyoko down the stairs and injures her hand. Instead of telling the director about Chiori’s actions, Kyoko decides to take a much more disturbing path for her revenge. She humiliates Chiori while on the set of their drama, in character, in front of all the other actors and crew. She then blackmails her into savagely bullying one of the other actresses in her place. All while in character. Chiori gets very ugly in this scene. But none of it looks out of place in the drama they’re shooting.

It’s a really chilling, eerie scene. Unfortunately, most of the savage nature, and the lesson about bullying, is taken back at the end (because I don’t think shoujo manga are allowed to say that worse bullying is the solution to a situation where you’re being pushed around). But all the same, it was a horrible scene. And also satisfying in some ways, because Kyoko rarely lashes out at people like that, and it’s satisfying to see that she can give as well as she gets.

This Chiori storyline hasn’t been one of my favorites in the series though, aside from this bullying scene (I hate admitting I really enjoyed that, but I promise, in the context of the series, it’s really good). The next storyline promises to be a real winner, though.

It’s Valentine’s day. I’ve read enough Valentine’s day stories to last me a lifetime, but this one is different. So many of the characters in this series are frighteningly against the holiday. Others, like the director of LME, are frighteningly for it. The scary guy from Vie Ghoul is back. Also, it’s Ren’s birthday, and if there’s anything I want to see worse than Kyoko giving Ren any sort of present, I don’t know what it is.

So, yes. Skip Beat is one of the most fun shoujo series I think I’ve ever read. It’s quickly becoming one of my all-time favorites, and I am ridiculously excited whenever a new volume arrives. Hopefully I can write up 24 before volume 25 arrives, but I may have to read it several times before that happens.