Comments on: Skip Beat! 15-18 by Yoshiki Nakamura: B+

By: Salimbol

Salimbol — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 06:48:11 +0000

Lory was just as much fun as he should be; you can tell they had a great time with his grand entrances!

By: Michelle

Michelle — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:24:00 +0000

*snerk* I see. I’ll have to get back to watching it sometime; I was particularly eager to see Lory animated. :)

By: Salimbol

Salimbol — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:35:27 +0000

Whoops, what I’ve said below was supposed to be a direct response to this, but this little error message appeared… and it didn’t happen.

By: Salimbol

Salimbol — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:34:28 +0000

I re-read the first 18 volumes recently, and I’m happy to report that it (unlike many shoujo series) holds up very, very well on re-reading. I enjoyed the anime a lot, too; I think it caught the feeling of the manga pretty well. And Katsuyuki Konishi did the voice of Ren, so it scores many points with me on that score ;-) (I tend to switch into this automatic lust-filled mode at the sound of his voice, you see :-)

By: Michelle

Michelle — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:22:19 +0000

It’s definitely the kind of series that’s fun to read in a marathon. :) I watched the first episode of the anime but haven’t yet continued.

By: Salimbol

Salimbol — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:24:10 +0000

Ah, this is such a great series. I have recently converted a friend to it; he read the first few volumes and then immediately ploughed his way through all of the rest of them, not to mention buying the anime and hunting down scanlations. That was my good deed for the year! :-)
And I agree with the discussions above; the slow-growing romance is adorable, but there’s just so much else going on that’s at least as important, it really doesn’t feel like there’s any hurry at all.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:28:21 +0000

Er, by “nice place” I mean “satisfying place.” It isn’t a plot spoiler. :)

By: Michelle

Michelle — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:26:08 +0000

Well put! That’s it exactly. I don’t mind waiting if the characters need to grow (or accomplish something else first) to get to a place where they’re ready for romance.

My stockpiling wasn’t intentional, but it was definitely fun to read a bunch in a row. Volume 19 also happily ends in a nice place so the wait (until March, I think) for 20 shouldn’t be too excruciating. Still, now that I’ve managed to catch back up I doubt I’ll be able to hold out, either. :)

By: lys

lys — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:35:33 +0000

I’m with you both too! I don’t think I’d take it in any other series, but with Skip Beat! it seems like the slow-paced romance isn’t a result of the author procrastinating, so much as that there is all this other (worthwhile, important, interesting) stuff going on in Kyoko’s world that needs to be written/read about first. It doesn’t read like the usual shoujo-manga trick of tossing in unexpected obstacles just for the sake of prolonging the series, and maybe that’s why I’m willing to be patient.

Stockpiling seems like an attractive choice for the series, but with the releases slowing down to match the Japanese releases, I’m not sure I can hold out very long when I know there is a new volume available.

By: Yaoi, cats, and conventions « MangaBlog

Yaoi, cats, and conventions « MangaBlog — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:20:25 +0000

[...] 1 of Rin-ne (Manga Critic) Connie on vol. 7 of Slam Dunk (Slightly Biased Manga) Michelle Smith on vols. 15-18 of Skip Beat! (Soliloquy in Blue) Julie on vol. 8 of Vampire Knight (Manga Maniac Cafe) Greg McElhatton on vol. 1 [...]