Addictions are supposed to be Bad, Right?

I started a new manga series this week entitled Skip-Beat! The series is about a 16yr. old girl named Kyoko Mogami who is diving headfirst into show business. Her motive for becoming a star is her desire to crush her former friend Sho Fuwa (a boy). Crush, as in, destroy. The two of them ran away from home together so that Sho could become a famous musician. Kyoko was the one that worked and paid for everything for Sho while he worked on his music. Unfortunately for Kyoko, Sho saw her as nothing more than a glorified housekeeper. (There was nothing romantic about them running away together. They were merely best childhood friends.) When Kyoko found out about Sho's true feelings she swore to him that she would become a bigger star than he would ever be. After a great deal of persistence, Kyoko earned a place in the Love Me section of a management company that worked with Ren Tsuruga who just happened to be the most famous young actor in Japan at the time. (Ren is the guy that Sho is trying to beat out in popularity.) In the Love Me section, Kyoko is given jobs to do that no one else wants to do. Her objective is to do her jobs so well that people around her begin to love her. See, because her heart was broken by Sho and, as you learn through the series, her mother, Kyoko doesn't know how to love anymore. As Kyoko works throughout the books, she begins to grow as a person from the unsure, quiet, bullied girl of her childhood into an up and coming film star.

Skip-Beat! follows Kyoko through her work in the Love Me section (that's her hot pink uniform that she has to wear while working in the Love Me jobs) and into her life surrounding her work as an actress. Ren Tsuruga who starts off as an antagonist before he gets to know Kyoko, ends up becoming Kyoko's teacher when she needs help creating a role.

Sho, Ren, and Kyoko

Of course, you may have guessed by now, at least from the picture above, that the two boys begin to play different parts in Kyoko's life. When Sho realizes how much Kyoko has grown up without him, he starts to want to own her. He doesn't love her, but he can't stand the idea of Kyoko loving anyone but him so he does his best to keep himself in her thoughts constantly. As he figures, even if she hates him, at least that means she's thinking of him instead of anyone else. Ren, on the other hand, falls completely head over heels in love with Kyoko. There are old (childhood) reasons for this that Kyoko knows nothing of, though.

This is the first series that I've read that I just HAD to continue with no matter what. So much so, that even though my library only has up to Volume 18 of the US releases, I went the extra step and visited One Manga where I read the rest of the series that has been released so far. Released in Japan, that is. And now, I'm dying for more. I want Kyoko to realize that Ren is the perfect guy for her, that Sho isn't worth wasting any thoughts on, and that love really is an emotion that she needs to have in her life. Unfortunately, Skip-Beat! is only released every two weeks in Japan. And after it's release there, I have to wait for someone to translate and post the new chapter on One Manga before I can read it. Thankfully, the last chapter was posted on March 5th so sometime tomorrow or maybe early next week the latest chapter will be available for me to read.

Yes, I am addicted to a manga. I knew I very much enjoyed the other two series that I've read so far (Naruto and Tsubasa) but I hadn't gone out of my way to read either of those two online. *Sigh* Oh well, I suppose there's nothing more to do than wait for that next wonderful chapter of Skip-Beat!. In the meantime, I suppose I should go back to unillustrated books since I do have a number of them out of the library. Wish me luck. I'm going to miss Ren and Kyoko so much. *tear*