Skip Beat! tv Review

Kyoko has devoted her life to Shoutarou, holding out hope that her feelings would eventually be returned. When Shou elopes to Tokyo, she follows him and gladly handles the housework and rent while he chases his dream of becoming a singer. One day, Kyoko overhears that Shou looks down her as just a "convenient housekeeper", but after confronting him and vowing revenge, she finds herself mocked and evicted on the spot.

Kyoko is now more determined than ever to enter showbiz and beat Shoutarou at his own game! But the experience has left her bitter and jaded, which unfortunately is not at all in line with the requirements of LME, the competitor of Shoutarou's company. Before being acknowledged as a proper trainee, Kyoko must graduate from the newly founded "Love Me" Section, which proves to be more of a challenge than she thought!

Synopsis: pandemonium91

Story & Characters

Mogami Kyoko is a teenage girl who idolizes her childhood friend, Fuwa Shoutarou, and volunteers to follow him when the latter, not wishing to take over his parents' inn, moves to Tokyo pursuing a career in music. While Shou, as his fans call him, becomes a top rising singer, naive Kyoko does all the housework from cleaning to cooking. Credulously enough, she doesn't complain yet is happy about being his "slave" that is until one day, she overhears Shou's conversation that he has been cheating on her for years and only needs her to do the chores. Kyoko explodes, vowing to take revenge by becoming a bigger star than him. And so, Kyoko changes her appearance and enters the entertainment industry, facing many challenges along the way. There she will fight to regain her lost emotions, and with the help of potential friend and acting rival Mouko and handsome actor Tsuruga Ren, she soon discovers a sense of self separate from her initial plans for revenge.

Not many shoujo series have started with a more unusual yet interesting than this one. Normally, this genre begins and contains many romantic elements, but as shoujo as Skip Beat! may look, it's not much about romance. Of course, there are a few hints of romance throughout the series as Kyoko's romantic interest with the two male leads are shown, but aside from that, it's silent and not much. This is a story about a girl trying to break into the entertainment industry only to find life worth living in the world of acting.

Shoujo manga is known for its crafty set of cast, and since Skip Beat! is a series about acting, not only that the characters are more appealing than most of its genre colleagues but each also possess many unique facades.

Kyoko is an inspired choice for the main lead. Much like the Pandora's box itself, she's a girl of multiple faces. At turns brilliant, thickheaded, sweet and downright psychopathic, she's never boring to watch and is not only convincing in all her varied moods, but also convincingly written. Her inexplicable devotion to Shou makes it understandable how much she broke down when she learned the sad truth, but it's still interesting that even after all this, she still cares for the guy who robbed her innocent childhood. As an actress, Kyoko is unrefined but creative, determined and spontaneous, able to impress talent scouts with her unique talents and improvisations. Yet despite the fact that thanks to her efforts, the set was successful, she chooses to believe it was done by the skills she learned in Shou's residence and only admits a job well done by her own strength. That's she's unutterably cool when channeling her inner demons into knife-edged performances doesn't hurt nor does her chibi timing is impeccable.

The rest of the cast is similarly well written, and similarly colorful. Shou has enough charm to seduce any naive girl out there; a self-esteemed narcissist, he dislikes his real because it's old-fashioned and how his fans would look if they discover his inferior sides, yet he still manages to convince them using "last moment skills." However detestable he is, the guy is still fell for Kyoko after realizing how much she has come out of the shell, his ability to convince others and natural charm make him even more likable than a total bastard. Ren appears to be one of the most unexpectedly interesting male leads to ever grace the genre. Cold, distant and strict, in his unguarded moments he's also kind and good-humored, and is refreshingly mature at all times. In order to integrate his character, he struggles to understand love after being stripped the feeling for years, yet without knowing what it is, he finds himself comfortable to discuss about romance in an even more oddly situation with a giant chicken. An endearingly cast in which everyone's lovable, deeply creative and emotional to behold.

Rating: 9

Art

The designs look very good with its likable cast but Kyoko is still held the record for being the most outstanding among them. It does intensive things with the visual conventions of shoujo (Kyoko is constantly swatting and manipulating to her own ends the little demons and angels that serve as the personifications of her feelings) and switches between straight-up hilarity, comic despair, and deadly serious introspection about twice a minute. A number of good deal of the series' humor comes from the exaggerated evil of Kyoko's expressions, or the struggled Ren gets sucked into a massive black hole with romance in his mind. The art of Skip Beat! resembles a typical bishi series and bishi goes well with bad writings, but even at that, its execution makes it far more brilliant than those.

As much good as the art may look, the visual is not that great. Hal Film Maker handled the animation, unlike the calm, relaxing Aria series, to support its mood, Skip Beat! has a colorful and bright style, the background is not very remarkable and plain fluidity, but it never bores and never looks bad.

Rating: 8

Sound

Although the cast of Skip Beat! is not solid, every seiyuu have a job done well, performing the right voice for the right character. Kyoko's seiyuu, Inoue Marina, does a wonderful job as this multiple faces lead, her hyperactive tone has made Kyoko a more talented actress in every different scenes from how the wicked onryou (evil spirits) are shown to her new rendition of the embittered, dark-personality Mio. The other two male lead also good, it doesn't matter that whether they're in the drama CD or the anime, Ren's seiyuu is notable for his role as characters with sinister background and Shou's is credited as an extravagant, arrogant pretty boy.

Much like its name sake, Skip Beat!, the entire series only uses one OP, and a... "BEAT" one indeed. It does with high energy extremely well, giving a humorous helping hand with lively original compositions. The same goes with the first ED whereas the second is composed with quiet, cutting piano themes.

Rating: 10

Presentation

With someone like Kyoko in the lead, there is of course an super-sized amount of fun to be had watching Skip Beat!. But still, it ends abruptly when there was already another series did the same attempt ten years ago. Shoujo fans don't need to know what I'm talking about, it's Kare Kano of course. They've both ended so sudden even if the epilogues are followed by the manga, however, as much as Kare Kano had stumbled, this little gem has a more delightful end and thus, it doesn't need a sequel.

For over three decades, no series has been able to topple Glass Mask as the top shoujo/acting manga until now. In a way Skip Beat! is as much about damaged people trying desperately to fix themselves as it is about show business or acting misadventures, and the hope and joy it finds in their successes is more addictive than any amount of mere fun could ever be. You can just tell it's 2000s' elite shoujo anime.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Story: 9
Characters: 9
Art: 9
Animation: 7
Voice: 10
Music: 8
Overall: 8.75
Good:
+Great humor, classic shoujo romance, and a heartbreaking subtext of redemption into something robust and yet delicate.
+Well-established and attractive leads.
Bad:
+Ends abruptly even for its own good.

Rating: 9

Final Verdict

9.0000 (very good)

Reviewed by Weskalia, Feb 27, 2011

Comments

kamuinoyume Feb 28, 2011

The ending was a little bit too abrupt for my taste, but I agree with you on everything else. Definitely a show worth watching!
Kiki-chan2 Mar 02, 2011

I have to agree the anime stops all of a sudden and doesn't continue the company should continue the anime story.......at least the story continues if u read the manga! It's really good so far I love it!
MANDy Mar 03, 2011

Maybe they want to wait until the manga reach certain number of chapters, or wait the manga finish first but that would be too long.....
kuryuki Apr 23, 2011

I have to agree that the sudden stop is not very nice ): I think they shouldn't have anime-ized it if it wasn't going to continue that long. but also I think the anime art does the manga little justice.
ai-yame Jul 04, 2011

Yes, it would have definitely been better if there were a second season to it; I mean, come on, the series had potential! :)

Good job with this well-written review; I also believe this series deserves a pretty high rating. ^_^

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