If you wonder why I haven’t been posting much, it’s because I’ve been too far immersed in watching anime, which is a welcome change. Particularly, I’ve been smashing my way through Skip Beat!
Skip Beat is a title I have heard of many times, and I tried to read the manga time and time again, but shoujo manga art pisses me off so much that I’ve dropped it every time.
But fuck me if the anime wasn’t awesome as hell.
When you build a show where revenge is the driving plotline, then I’m going to like it, even if it’s some shitty shoujo. Particularly, I don’t mind shoujo anime nearly as much as I mind manga. Anime tend to have less frilly shit and stupid background art than manga versions of the same shoujo. This was true for Skip Beat, but the men in the anime still seemed to have completely unnaturally long limbs, which kind of pissed me off. However, it still had good art, and a lot of changes in facial expressions and artistic style.
Revenge revenge revenge. I love it. I love everything about it. To me, there’s nothing better than throwing your victory in the face of someone who previously talked smack to you. It’s great to do and it’s great to watch. Why else do you think Kill Bill is my favorite movie? It’s the ultimate revenge tale as far as I’m concerned. Of course, there’s many, many other awesome revenge stories, but for now I’m going to focus on Skip Beat!
Skip Beat is…well it starts off heavily based on revenge, Kyoko, one of the most awesome female characters ever, decides to get revenge after learning her boyfriend (who is famous) pretty much just used her as a maid for her entire life. She decides the best way to do this is to become a bigger star than him.
The best part about Skip Beat is quite clearly Kyoko. She’s incredibly spiteful, and if you ever get her mad, she won’t bend over and start crying, she’ll kick your ass emotionally, physically, or in a multitude of ways. She’ll make you eat your words by stuffing them so far back down your throat that they’ll come out your ass. Tell her she’s not good at something and she’ll suddenly become better than anyone else on the planet.
Revenge.
The show is littered with small bits of revenge that are asides to the main revenge theme, and this makes me happy. There’s still comedy and all that shit mixed in, but to me, revenge was the main focus.
Back to Kyoko.
Marina Inoue plays a lot of bad ass roles. Besides Kyoko, she’s also Rei from HOTD, Matsurika from Maria Holic (not really bad ass, but still awesome), Yozora from Boku go Tomodachi (cruel and awesome), and of course Chiri from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. Kyoko, however, is in my opinion, her best role. There were multiple times when I watched Skip Beat and thought, “Shit, she’s kicking ass voicing Kyoko.” That’s kind of all I have to say there. Marina Inoue is immediately boosted to my top 5 seiyuu list.
There was, however, one flaw with the anime series. It ended. It ended before and end.
No. That’s not it.
It ended right before the climax of a particular arc. They could have made one more episode, and it would have rounded the anime off nicely.
But no.
They elected to fuck it all up by ending with the typical main character monologue as she rides her bike and reminisces about how she’s changed. That’s like if you’re watching a New York Giants game, and the score is close, and it’s the 4th quarter, and Eli Manning is driving for what could be a game winning score. He goes back to pass, and just as he’s pulling back to throw someone changes the channel. What the fuck are you serious Skip Beat producers???
Bullshit.
Cop out.
I’m dropping this show to a 5 because of that.
Bill got his ass kicked by all the God damn shoujo sparkles.
FINAL GRADE = 5
It was a very solid show, and I’ll probably end up checking the manga out now (unfortunetly), but the anime could’ve gotten a 5* had it ended better.
Eye Sedso 
Yeah, Kyoko is also the reason while Marina Inoue has always been high on my seiyuu watchlist. It’s also why I lament her career so much and compare it to Cuba Gooding Jr’s (cough sekirei cough Kampfer cough Rio: Rainbow Gate cough). Thankfully she appears to be getting better roles again.
I lamented for a good 2 years that Skip Beat never got a 2nd season. I still get a little po’d everytime I watch a shit anime.
*that gets another season that is.
I Lament that there is no second season. LAMENT.
You know, even though I swear we’ll never see the revenge plot… ever… I actually read the Kuroshitsuji manga every month hoping it’ll be resolved, because well… The main character lost his parents and his home when he was 10, then was sold to occultists as a sacrifice, and when they summoned a demon, the demon just turns his attention on our main character and kills everybody there. Then the demon becomes his butler/bodyguard/valet/footman after forming a covenant (my inner Supernatural fan is crying out: “crossroads demon!”), and vows to serve him until he gets his revenge – and our demon will get a tasty soul out of the deal. When it isn’t delving into murder mystery plots or zombies on the Titanic or going out hunting with the future mother in law and running into a fucking bear… yeah, you get what I mean.
Focus more on the revenge, Yana Toboso! Although I suppose the recent events of the manga are kind of leading up to the mystery…
(Also, you go up 10 points on my awesome radar for having Kill Bill as your favourite film.)
…..Bitch I AM your awesome radar.
I gotta watch Kuroshitsuji I guess…
No no, read the manga. The anime is… rather hackneyed.
Unless you can take the fact that the main overarching villain is an evil hermaphrodite angel and for no fucking reason Ciel adopts a demon hound that takes on human form and runs around naked all the time. And there’s a lot more fanservice. Because apparently a 3,000 year old demon who looks about 25 or so in human form would grow to love and care for a 13 year old boy. X_x
The second season of the anime is a lot darker and twisted, and I kind of hate it. There’s a new boy/demon butler team, and the boy is… Well, he gouges out his maid’s eye with his finger in the first episode. He’s a righf little bastard.
No no, read the manga. The anime is… rather hackneyed.
Unless you can take the fact that the main overarching villain is an evil hermaphrodite angel and for no fucking reason Ciel adopts a demon hound that takes on human form and runs around naked all the time. And there’s a lot more fanservice. Because apparently a 3,000 year old demon who looks about 25 or so in human form would grow to love and care for a 13 year old boy. X_x
The second season of the anime is a lot darker and twisted, and I kind of hate it. There’s a new boy/demon butler team, and the boy is… Well, he gouges out his maid’s eye with his finger in the first episode. He’s a right little bastard.
Apologies for the double post, you can blame my internet for that.
Manga it is.
1. Clever title.
2. Added to backlog.
As you should.
The chins of the dudes in the manga/anime really bother me, I still can’t get over it. I’ve been reading the manga for like three years and it literally HASN’T GOTTEN ANYWHERE. Still, it’s pretty funny, even though Japanese humor is sometimes totally incomprehensible.
I hate how men look in shoujo. Everything is long and pointy and stupid why are their arms and legs so stupidly long they don’t even look human.
Their arms remind me of those dwarf arms in Dragon Age. Damn.
I remember watching the episode but I can’t remember anything else about it, not even the episode I was watching. Recently I found out that Taiwan adapted this show to real life drama and the only reason why I know this is because the two heroes are from the group Super Junior, of which I have been fangirling for over 2 years now. However, I still haven’t watched them.
Shoujo isn’t just my thing.
btw, why the hell can’t I see those picture. Is it because of the STOP CENSORSHIP thingy?
Shoujo pisses me off and still here I am. Still most shoujo become dropped by me after one chapter (unless it’s yuri, but even then I still may drop it). On average I’ll find about one shoujo per year that I actually like.
I have no idea why you can’t see the images. Maybe I’m BEING censored already!!!
I think I talked about how Skip Beat had a decent start and then went to shit before… but, yeah, it totally did. The whole “point” of the series is that what happened to Kyoko is bad and she doesn’t like that she’s become like that and she wants to become a “good person” (that’s right, girls, you should be a doormat!) again. Since the anime probably only covers the portion before it got fucking stupid, I’ll let you slide.
But Kyoko becomes one of the most annoying flip flopping cunts in history, not to mention she eased herself into the role of being a Mary Sue at some point. She’s apparently the most miraculous actor that is ever going to exist, has three “hot”, rich men pursuing her, and everyone in the series likes her. Everyone who dislikes her at first comes to like her. And the “revenge” plot (aka, THE PLOT) is only brought up at random, and then totally forgotten about whenever it suits the story. Despite the fact that the manga is over 30 volumes, she has had NO development on working on her issues, it’s just been playing footy with Ren. And actually, her personality doesn’t make any sense at all — she goes from super sweet clumsy bashful innocent perfect Japanese girl to acting like a bit of a normal person to actually having a spine/personality/a brain and then, of course, goes on her random demonic tirades. While some people would say that means she’s well rounded, she isn’t written that way. She just seems like a completely different character and nothing she says or does has any sense of continuity. She’s kind of like Mio — whatever personality fits the situation is what she gets.
It doesn’t help that the art is atrocious and that the author doesn’t actually know how to draw (perspective, anatomy, etc), but it houses one of the most loathsome characters of all time — Ren’s stupid fucking manager. The sole purpose of this character is to hint at Ren/Kyoko. Every scene he’s in, no matter what he’s doing, he’s worried about Ren/Kyoko, or teasing Ren about Kyoko… WHY THE FUCK IS A 30 YEAR OLD MAN SO FUCKING OBSESSED WITH THE ROMANCE OF A 16 YEAR OLD GIRL AND A 20 YEAR OLD MAN?? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS FUCK? You’d think after it was confirmed they both loved each other that it would let up, since maybe it was to reassure stupid 10 year old girls that Ren and Kyoko would hook up… NO. SOMEHOW IT GOT WORSE. WHY DOES LIFE EXIST???
I got so mad thinking about that homo I forgot where I was going… Kyoko sucks, Ren sucks, that other guy sucks, everyone in Skip Beat! sucks (except Kyoko’s ‘friend’ whose name I forgot because she barely appears), and Skip Beat! sucks and I hope it will die soon.
I’m not sure what shoujo it is you’re looking at, but only shitty shoujo has super long limbs and super pointy everything, typically. The only exception is early CLAMP works, where the guys had shoulders 6 feet across. However, for quite a while now I think that style has died off, sans the pointy chins. But those are common in most things… probably… I’m drunk.
I forget most of this anime. I even re-read my post, and I NEVER do that since they all suck and are usually wrong. Still can’t recall much. I was probably too focused on the revenge, as any show with revenge as a driving theme makes me bias, but I did here from reviews and shit that Skip Beat gets all shitty after a certain point, and since I’d probably have to read it from the beginning and there’s 30 chapters…..I’ll pass.
I’ll take your word for it that Kyoko sucks as a character. Any comparison to Mio must mean that she sucks. Thanks for the HAND.
Yes, I’m still going to use HAND puns from that other comment. Fuck it.
I don’t even remember what the HAND thing is about, so I guess we can call it even (no)
I win.
I was just being angry over Skip Beat again, and I thought of the biggest problem with Kyoko’s “revenge”. Her revenge doesn’t even make sense. Even if she became a bigger star than him, she would still be in two separate categories — female, and actress. If she wanted to really get “revenge” on him she should have tried to outdo him in singing. But even then, she’d still be in the female category — the whole reason he hated Ren so much was because he was more popular with women. Granted, if she went with music, there’s a possibility she could take away from some of his fans if she scheduled releases and concerts on the same day… but again, he’d still be an extremely rich, popular musician, and possibly the most “wanted” male celebrity, so how is this “revenge”?
You know what revenge would be? Destroying his voice, letting a scandal get out to destroy his career, and then framing him for a crime that will completely drain his funds, making him so destitute that he has no one to turn to but Kyoko. She’d then take him in, saying she forgave him, especially after he went through all that, all while using him as a slave for 16~ years and after that saying she was just using him the whole time. Fuck, she doesn’t even need to go that far, just fucking up his voice and destroying all his hopes and dreams would be adequate.
Kyoko is a dumb bitch.
No she planned on getting a sex change I think.
Time to start drinking.
Alone…
That would have been even better to hurt his pride, since more women would be going after a tranny-man instead of an actual man.
Exactly I wish I had the time and ambition to write my own thing because it’d be awesome. And make no sense.
It would probably still make more sense than Skip Beat.