skip-beat manga

i’m reading Yoshiki Nakamura’s shojo manga “Skip-Beat!” the layouts are sometimes a bit confusing (and therefore the whole series seems less polished to me). it’s often hard to tell whose thoughts you’re reading, and she likes to span several pages with a single thought separated into several words at a time — PLUS you have to read the dialogue, and cute little action notes, so my brain gets full trying to follow all those fragments. BUT nonetheless, the story caught my interest.

a girl who has been self-sacrificing and boring and normal is transformed into someone of passion by a traumatic incident. it’s not a good thing, in some ways — her dark side is unlocked by a cold-hearted rejection. but even that is interesting to watch.

the art includes illustration of the evil spirits that are given freedom to operate in her life when she lets rejection lead to anger, hate and bitterness. these spirits, labeled “grudge” and “hate” and such things, fly around her. even other characters notice this dark aura.

but she quickly realizes that she has lost something precious by letting this dark side run free. and she seeks to restore the “human emotions so precious to life” that she lost. it isn’t easy, though. a small angelic “pure self” spirit flutters around at times, fighting with the illustrated evil ones. but her “pure self” gets womped quite a bit. no telling how long that battle will go on.

i’m interested in stories that bring the invisible, supernatural side of life into visibility through various manga or movie techniques.

here, put on these 7-D glasses and tell me what you see. heh. yeeeaah… i wanna do that.