Manga Review: Skip Beat by Yoshiki Nakamura

Title: Skip Beat!

Original Title: Skip Beat!

Author: Yoshiki Nakamura

Artist: Yoshiki Nakamura

Year of Release: 2002

Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance, Shoujo, Slice of Life

Status: Ongoing

Chapters (Translated in English): 229

Volumes & Chapters: 

38 Volumes, Ongoing

Mangafox – Goodreads

Summary

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.

My Thoughts

Review covers 46 chapters 

Hi everyone and welcome back to Katie’s Corner! Today I’m starting a series of reviews covering one of my favourite mangas – Skip Beat! To say the truth it’s my third round reading it, and the first time was only half a year ago or so. It’s still ongoing and because there’s too much information in it for only one review, I’ll be making a series of it. I will be having some major things as my timelines. But let me begin; oh, but before I begin, let me just make a small list of things that this review will cover:

·      How it all began

·      Practice, practice & again practice

·      First TV appearance

·      A chance to get revenge?

First of all, let me start from the very beginning. Meet our main female character – Kyoko Mogami. She’s one of those who believes in fairy tales, but at the same time, she works hard to achieve her spot of a princess near her prince charming – Shou Fuwa, her childhood friend and newly popular singer. But everything changes when she gets to know the real reason he brought her with him to Tokyo. With her heart broken and Pandora’s box open, she is aiming to get revenge and she’ll be having these little devils to help her.

You’ll see anger/devil Kyoko’s a lot in the story and they’ll make you laugh until your tummy hurts. But how do you get your revenge on a popular singer? You get into the showbiz. Oh, but first you’ll need a makeover! And Kyoko gets her, and she persistently runs after the director to get accepted. She get’s her wish!

 if she wouldn’t someone would have ended up dead!

However, with getting accepted the challenges are just starting! As she has lost a major human emotion she’s sent to a newly made “Love Me” section. There she meets many different people, who will add more knowledge into her… But this is boring just retelling you the story, even if I’m doing a good job. What I really want you to look at is Kyoko. How she’s growing as a person as well as an actress. Her ability to assess the situation and make decisions is fantastic and you’ll have to see her act numerous times during this 46 chapters. It will be nothing major; okay her last job is pretty fantastic. She made me shiver. But trust me there’s more coming. And you do not want to miss any of it.

These first 7 volumes and also this review are mostly focused on Kyoko. Well, I’ll be focusing on Kyoko only and a bit on Shou. I’ll make more time to focus on other characters in the next reviews. We get to see Kyoko from different sides. The one who was doing everything for Shou as well as the one who started to do something for her. We get to see that she didn’t have all that happy childhood, however, we only see bits of it. We do not see the whole picture and we are always left wondering as to what really happened to her.

However, let me not bore you anymore and just say a few words about the last point on the list: A chance to get revenge? As you remember Kyoko got into showbiz because she wanted to get revenge on Shou Fuwa. Why? Please, read the story, as I do not want to spoil this! You’ll be on Kyoko’s side, trust me! However, the chance to get revenge comes faster than expected. She’s asked to take part in his new PV, and her role is satisfying: she’ll be playing the role of the angel who kills Demon (Shou). Will she be able to able to play her heart well? Or will the hatred take over her and she’ll make a fool of herself? You’ll be having goose bumps all over when you see her act, and Shou will be acting weird. Will there be something happening with those two after the shoot? Well, that’s up to you to find out!

Enjoy this work to its fullest and don’t forget to share your thoughts below! I have omitted lots of things and you’ll be having fun meeting all those characters. Stay tuned for more reviews as well as promos! Don’t miss your next favourite book or manga! Don’t miss the next review of Skip Beat! on my blog! Happy reading!

XOXO

Katie

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