Recommendation & Review: Skip Beat! – Episode 10

Well, at first I don’t think too much of this series until I somehow got the first episode later. It’s worth watching and it’s an encouraging story. Skip Beat! is a Japanese shoujo manga by Yoshiki Nakamura. I also know a similar manga of becoming a singer by Arina Tanemura: Full Moon wo Sagashite.

Story

The story of Skip Beat! is about Kyoko Mogami, a wistful yet cheery sixteen year-old girl who loves her childhood friend, Shotaro, but is cruelly betrayed and thus seeks revenge against him. She used to spend a lot of time at Shotaro’s parents’ inn and learned a lot about housekeeping, hostelry, and other stereotypically correct feminine jobs (sewing, cooking, serving tea traditionally, etc.). Shotaro, not wishing to take over his parents’ inn, becomes ‘bored’ of living in Kyoto and decides to move to Tokyo to pursue a career in music. Sho, as he is called by his fans, asks Kyoko to leave high school, Kyoto Prefecture and her life behind to help him.

Upon arrival in Tokyo, Kyoko lives an unreasonably frugal life, spending nothing on herself and doing whatever she can for Sho, who is ranked seventh in the top twenty most popular entertainers of Japan. It appears that Shotaro never helps with the cost of food, apartment, or necessary products. However, one day as she brings him his lunch at a company building, she overhears Sho complaining about her to his manager, saying that she is a boring and plain girl that he’d like to be rid of, proceeding to sweet-talk and flirt with his manager, whereas he hadn’t even put his arm around Kyoko in her life. Unlike other heroines in the same situation, Kyoko doesn’t shed many tears when she learns that Sho thinks she’s only good for housekeeping. Instead, her “Pandora’s box” opens and she vows vengeance on Shotaro. Enraged, Kyoko attempts to attack Sho, but is instantly carried off by security. Sho mockingly tells her that if she wants revenge, she had better become a bigger star than him. She then begins planning how to accomplish this, and get her revenge in doing so.