Category “Skip Beat”

8 Mangas To Read this February

Tuesday, 2 February, 2010

To set the mood x)

Well with the month of love in the air, I figured it would be cool to make a list of eight mangas that I like that I think people should check out this month if they are in the mood to read some good romance mangas. Of course, most of my choices for recommendations are pretty obvious, but sometimes people ignore the obvious series. Sometime within this week I also plan to make my list of Animes to watch to celebrate the month. Why eight you may ask? Well I figured why not. So I hope you somewhat like the recommendations! (and yes, they are in some sort of order) Read the rest of this entry »

The Anime Season So Far

Saturday, 13 December, 2008

440

And a Christmas picture to start things off!

Although I am very behind on a lot of series, I’ve caught a glimpse of most and can at least give my opinion on them and since I am watching so much, I thought it would be a good idea to give an overall impression of them so far. So let the list begin! Read the rest of this entry »

Skip Beat episodes 5+6+7 (catch-up)

Monday, 1 December, 2008

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Love Me?

Well, I’m not on hiatus or dead or anything like that, I just had a very short and busy weekend. December has begun, but it’s not like the work load has decreased or anything, but in just 3 agonizingly long weeks I will be free on my holiday break! Until then, I will just have to be a sleep deprived non-stop studying girl, that is until I get my break as I mentioned… Read the rest of this entry »

Skip Beat episode 4

Sunday, 9 November, 2008

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The story now “truly” begins!

I really enjoyed this episode and it left me with a good impression about the anime, which is so far turning out very good! So, since the last episode where she decided to give up on entertaining the showbiz, she now got a new job, which is basically just watching cars. She does feel disappointed in herself, but she’s also proud how she was able to get a new job so fast. Though, just when she thinks she can escape her past life, who else but Sho enters in his car with his manager to get it cleaned. This indeed lit the flame of revenge once again in Kyoko’s heart! She continued her job as she should, but soon enough her partner, who is a big Sho fan, decides to ask for an autograph and she also points out Kyoko who was trying to be as least conspicuous as she can. When Kyoko approaches Sho though, she realizes that he doesn’t even recognize her for whom she used to be, which is evidently the ultimate insult. It still surprises me even now that Sho would even think to call Kyoko boring at one point, for someone as dramatic as she is, that seems to be the exact opposite from how you would describe her and it isn’t even a matter of how she is now, she was just as insane before!

Through this meet, with really only one person recognizing each other, Kyko decides to enter the business again! Of course she gets a little encouragement from Taishou, who is a pretty fierce looking Boss, but he really has a good side to him. Kyoko plans out how she will get into LME without having to get caught by the secretaries, which is by going through the staff hallway, but she ends up bumping into an actress on her way to the president’s office. I still find it unrealistic how easily she can get into these areas filled with celebrities and how even if she managed to get into a place, which you would expect to have high security, she even bumps into and meets them. I don’t really know how it works with “serebus” in Japan, but I would think that most would at least have one bodyguard? But moving along…somehow, the actress managed to get Kyoko to hold all of her luggage and soon enough finds herself in front of Ren. It’s kind of amusing seeing him around a bunch of people because for the anime they Really did make him seem tall, so he looks like a giant compared to everyone else!

Anyway, Takenori soon discovers that Kyoko did in fact come back to the industry, which makes both him and the president very excited. Ren begins explaining what the Love Me section is to Kyoko, but she really doesn’t understand what he means because the only thing she bothers to think about is how ridiculous the name is. As Ren continues his explanation, he soon points out that Kyoko is the first official member of the Love Me Section! Kyoko’s reaction to being in the Love Me section was truly priceless! I can’t wait, to see what she thinks of the uniform! So, as I mentioned, I thought that this was a very well done episode. It kept a steady balance of comedy and drama and it advanced the plot quite a lot. The character interpretation form the manga is excellent! Even Sho sort of seems likable in a completely annoying way! The only thing that came to my realization by watching this episode was that this series has an abnormal amount of the pink bubbly backgrounds. Naturally, no shoujo series is complete without them, but I think they may overuse them a bit in Skip Beat. Anyway,  where did this cliche even originate from? The next episode looks like a lot of fun once again, which I’m excited to see. Even though the animation isn’t anything top-notch, I’m still enjoying the series a lot and I hope to see it get only better from here!

an example of bubbly backgrounds

Skip Beat episode 3

Tuesday, 28 October, 2008

Daikon Power!

So this turned out to be quite an entertaining episode and things are finally moving along. This episode ends the auditions and also shows us the aftermath, which will lead to the introduction of the Love Me Section. After the last episode, where it ended with Kyoko showing off her special skill, we see what it really it is, which is a special technique of cutting a “Daikon” into the shape of a flower. Evidently, such a difficult and obscure talent impressed Lory, the president of LME, and got her into the next round even though, she was disappointed that her Daikon didn’t take the appearance of a rose, but rather a cabbage. Though, after Moko predicts that Kyoko will fail the next round, it actually comes true. The second round was more to show off your acting skills and the task was to listen to a cellphone call and respond to it. Moko went right before her and all the judges were super impressed with her ten second tears.

When it was Kyoko’s turn, she heard a message from a man saying he was sorry for being such a self centered guy, but all the traits that were listed reminded her of Sho, which really aggravated her and instead of accepting the apology, she literally broke the cellphone. I always find it so amusing, how whenever she completely spazzes out, she actually seems really crazy and everyone around her always becomes frightened. Later, when the results to whom made it through were listed, Kyoko wasn’t one of them and Takenori decided to explain to her why. Basically, the reason to why she wasn’t excepted is that she lacks the feeling of love and without out that you can never get an audience to like you. Kyoko just accepted this instead of fighting for it and when she got home, the only thing she managed to do, was cry her eyes out. The scene where we see her ripping her Sho poster and crying all night, actually made me really depressed as well. The series really did a good job of conveying the characters feelings and this wasn’t the only case, it also happened before in scenes where she was aggravated or upset, I really feel for Kyoko’s character as well. Although, emotions usually do play a big part in a shoujo series, I just wanted to point that out with this series because many series usually make it seem all too fake.

By the next day, every character was having doubts on their decisions, which leads us off to a new chapter. Much to my surprise, I really liked this episode. Before I saw it, I wasn’t expecting much because like I mentioned I considered this sort of an introduction to the series, but that wasn’t really the case after seeing it. By now, I have finally adapted to the animation and I even think it works well with the show. The only thing, that sort of weirds me out is all the skirt shots of Kyoko because none of them are in a promiscuous way at all, yet there is so many times the focus lies only on where her skirt lies. I also always never particularly liked her fashion sense for the most part, so it basically just odds me out. I guess I’ll just add it to the category of thinks I may never understand. Anyway, the anime is doing a pretty good job of living up to the manga and I’m interested to see if it stays constant like that for the whole series. The next episode seems good and I like how we actually get some clips for the preview and how its incorporated into the ending theme, which has a really catchy tune for its song!