AYAKO - TEZUKA Review

Skip Beat - Pricess Jelly Fish - Ten Count

For this week, I chose three that I hadn't read or seen any anime version at all and I was quite surprised. I chose them at random just because of the name, and all three could not be anymore different than they already are.

First of all, we have SKIP BEAT. 

What an interesting, semi confusing story of Kyoko Mogami, a girl who wants to be famous in order to get back at her childhood friend for ignoring her after he made it big as an idol in Tokyo. The story is almost like a Cinderella story, she slowly gets into the Idol business and is exposed to all the glitza and the glamour of it all but she suffers the stressful down sides as well as the hidden mysteries of the idol world. Its quite and adventure and it's incredibly long.
The style is very classical shoujo, HUGE EYS, cute feminine figures and even the men almost look like beautiful women, displaying large shimmery eyes and slender tall figures. The series was a little sad at times, Kyoko struggles with a lot of personal conflicts and even some inner conflicts that put her down from wanting to peruse her goal. Slowly she stops wanting to be an idol because of revenge but finds that she feels fit for that world and works towards becoming a better actress,idol and overall charming celebrity. 
I liked the story it was really reminiscent of my days in middle school when I would read manga like this. I think we all had are desires of stardom but this illustrated a fantasy that would definitely make it popular for young readers.

UP NEXT, Princess Jellyfish.

Princess Jellyfish was so CUTE! I'm a sucker for simplistic art, it reminds me of a lot of french comic artists because the characters are really nice and clean with interesting shape language and the backgrounds aren't super crazy. It's difficult to categorize this manga, the story is a little difficult to put in a box by traditional Japanese manga publishing standards. Its almost a slice of life with a few curve balls and plot twists in the way. The main character and the friends she lives with are all really weird characters, each of them has a problem or niche that they struggle with on a day to day, but despite their weird-ness "Normies

" (normal people as they call it in the manga) they still have each other and accept each other. Tsukimi is the main girl, we follow her around and her self insecurities for a while until she meets Kuranosuke or kurako as he calls himself and turns out he is a cross-dresser. His father had an affair with his mother and can't stand looking at him because he looks too much like his mother. Yet another seemingly charming manga with a rooted problem that the characters must over come. It was really interesting and I will definitely be watching the anime after i'm done reading.

TEN COUNT- A dark twisted yaoi about a guy who washes his hands too much.

Um what was that? I though yaois were supposed to be sorta charming and playfully sexual. Well this one was dark. This story follows a young man who has OCD and cant stop washing his hands, he wears white gloves all the time, which really they should be black because he gets blood on them all the time after the bandages stop doing their job right. 

The story was not my favorite genre. It was kinda psychological with a touch of soft gore. I just don't like the idea of seeing this troubled guy be so self loathing, and yet I was intrigued by the conflict. He hares getting his hands dirty and is an obsessed germophobe but he meets this guy named, Riku, who is advocating for helping him get over his fear through the cognitive therapy called "Flooding". This is when you expose a patient with a phobia, to the object or cause of that phobia repeatedly flooding them with it so that over time they don't even realize its there. 

There are ten things he wants to do to cure himself, so shirotani (the main character) writes them down but leaves 10 blank. It's clear that ten is a sexual encounter but it's a long wait until then. After various flirtatious scenes, some bloody imagery, and a few panic attacks Riku slowly falls in love with shirotani, and they end up reaching all 10. 

Those were the three I read, if any of them seem interesting to you go for it, and send me an email if you want to get coffee and talk about these titles, until next time :)