When I heard Skip Beat! was being made into an anime last June I was excited, but worried the anime company would endup ruining it. The first episode, at least, proves those worries were groundless.

There’s nothing like seeing a manga you love come to life. I think can officially list Skip Beat as my favorite show this fall, just through pure biased love.

OP and ED

The first thing I thought when I saw the OP was: “OMG Corn!” Plus getting to see Kanae and Yashiro’s anime designs was awesome. The transition from old Kyoko to new Kyoko in the middle was interesting. And it was amusing to see her clobbering Sho with a hammer. Finally showing grown-up Ren only once and at the end was a good decision, because it makes his appearance more meaningful. Dreamstar sounds better when you hear it all together with the animation.

This ending is more emo and romantic (since it only shows Ren and Kyoko thourghout the whole ED). I really liked it, except for how they started showing the preview as before the song was finished playing. I was hoping for an actual RenxKyoko scene at the end of the song. Sigh.

Summary

The shows starts off by explaining that everyone is given a locked box by God when they are born that they can never open themselves.

The show opens with Kyoko working hard at her job at a fast food restaurant. She goes to the locker room to change out of her work clothes, in hurry because her other job at a Darumaya is starting soon. She slows down when she hears some girls talking about Sho Fuwa, excited because they’re saying he’s cool and better than Ren Tsuraga. One of the girls pulls out two large posters of Sho she got for buying two copies of the first release of his new single. Kyoko gets upset because she also bought two copies of the first release of his new single, but didn’t get even one poster. She despairs, until one of her coworkers suggests she could go to the store and see if she could get a poster using her receipt. She dashes out of the change room and bikes over to the music store, yelling “Sho-chan’s Poster!” the whole way. She manages to get a poster, but is almost late for work and has to ride over to the Darumaya super fast. The tashio’s wife worries about her and asks “doesn’t she want to be like regular girls?”. Kyokot thinks about the talk as she rides home, but is distracted by seeing a light on in her apartment when she gets home. She runs up the stairs and it turns out Kyoko has been living with Sho Fuwa, who was her childhood friend and the person she’s in love with. She tries to get him to stay, but he starts to leave. She manages to convince him by bribing him with his favorite pudding. She also tells him what the girls said at work which makes him happy and causes him to boast, because he thinks he’s taken the coolest male celebrity title away from Ren Tsuaga. However, he turns on TV to see Ren on a talk show for being named the sexiest male celebrity by women in their early twenties, whereas Sho is number 8 on the list. Kyoko tries to make him feel better, but Sho leaves angrily. She takes out her anger on Ren who’s still on the TV. The next day, Kyoko calls Sho at work to tell him that he’s her number one. She also decides to deliver some food over to him at the studio. In a flashback it is revealed that Sho’s family owned a prominet Japanese Inn in Kyoto, where Kyoko lived with him. Sho had problems with his family because he wanted to be a singer instead of taking over the family inn. At graduation for middle school, he asked Kyokoto run away to Tokyo with him, because if he stayed there he’d be forced to marry “a girl from around here who’s plain and boring.” When Kyoko reaches Sho, she hears him talking to his manager Shoko, about how boring and plain she is, how he brought her to Tokyo to clean and cook for him and that she was the girl his family was hoping he’d marry. His hurtful words break open the box in Kyoko’s heart, causing her to reveal herself by throwing the food at him. She doubles over covering her face, and Sho tells her to stop crying. But Kyokowas laughing not crying. Surrounded by a demonic aura, she swears she’ll get her revenge on him. He calls security on her. As security takes her away, he mockingly tells her that she can get her revenge by joining show business and becoming a celebrity. The next day, the apartment Sho and Kyoko shared is bare. It goes to a beauty salon, where Kyoko tells a store lady to keep the change on her purchase of a new haircut and outfit, because she’s getting rid of her past. Kyoko has decided to take Sho’s advice and join show business. She ends the show by calling Sho by his real name “Shotaro.”

Commentry

They actually put an image of God holding the box. I guess because the anime needed to fill in some time with filler animation that the manga didn’t need.

Just a warning to anime only viewers: there are going to be a lot of fangirls on this show, for Ren, Sho or both. These are the least annoying fangirls actually. Sigh. Oh well it’s always amusing when Kyoko pwns the really annoying fangirls.

I loved how Kyoko was all happy for a minute, before realizing what it meant. So cute~!

The first time we get a hint of Kyoko’s strange personality under her outwardly normal facade. It’s her co-worker’s first time, obviously given their reactions.

..As well as the first example of her extreme determination, and physical endurance. Who rides a bike into a store to get a poster? Only Kyoko. That’s why I love her.

She gets to work on time, but she’s too tired to work. It’s the lesson she never seems to learn: “Working  too hard and trying to do your best can work against you sometimes.”

The first time Kyoko’s obsessive love of fairytales is mentioned. It doesn’t show how much she obsessive about at this point, but it’s introduced and that’s the main thing. Anime only viewers take note, because this is a semi-important plot point.

Just frickin’ cute. Little Kyoko is absolutely adorable.  One thing bothers me though. Why do all anime flashbacks of main characters show them with pigtails when they were little? I hardly ever see little girls with pigtails nowadays or even when I was a kid.

And Kyoko’s other obsessive love makeup is introduced. It doesn’t really affect the plot that much, except at the beginning to show how much Kyoko sacrificed for Sho, that she wouldn’t even buy herself something she loved so much if it meant he would go without.

LMAO at this. The best anime original moment in the whole episode is Kyoko imaging Sho is Tadase style prince clothes. What’s up with the size of the crown too? Priceless.

The way they’re standing under the cherry blossom trees reminded me of really bad confession scenes in shojo manga, so I had a hard time taking it seriously. Side note: Sho’s middle school haircut looks weird and Kyoko looks adorable in her sailor uniform with her hair down. I can’t believe Sho called her plain. It just shows that he’s an idiot.

Sperating Sho’s “cool voice” with “normal” Sho was a good idea since it really shows the contrast between who pretends to be and who he really is. Well, I’m at it, Marina Inoue is doing a fabulous job with Kyoko, who’s a difficult role to protray since she has so many different sides to her, but Inoue is handling it beautifully. Katsuyuki Konishi seems to be doing a good job with Ren too, from the little bit that was heard in this episode.

I hope this we’ll put an end to all the fangirls complaining about how Ren looks so ugly in the anime verison. He looks fine, and the reason he looks “so different”  (which he doesn’t) from the manga is because a) anime artwork is never as good as the original manga and b) Nakamura-Sensei in particular has a  style that’s difficult to copy exactly.

Heh. Ren still manages to pwn Sho even before they meet. I can’t wait until the anime covers the ashtray kicking scene.

Just because it’s cute, and we won’t get to see cute Kyoko again for a few episodes at least.

Shoko as a red head sort of brothers me, because I always pictured her with blond hair when I was reading the manga.

A Sho demon was the one to unlock Kyoko box. How fitting. I loved it’s laugh too.

This is why Skip Beat rules. How many other shojo mangas and animes have demonic auras?

This is the 2nd best anime only moment in the episode (ROFL image of prince Sho still wins). Ren going “what the hell?” at Kyoko’s demon aura (it’s surprising it reached that far), and indroducingYashiro (who doesn’t show up until chapter two in the manga) was cool. I hope they have more random Ren and Yashiro moments until they’re in the main plot more.

I wish I could beat someone up using the angelic verisons of myself. I can’t believe it caused such a dent in his cheek too.

More Kyoko grudge demons, only better because they actually look like her now. I hope the anime has them talk among themselves, and sometimes argue with a lone”pure Kyoko” that’s still left after this.

Badass Kyoko= pure awesomeness. It’s as simple as that.

Preview

Next week the poor LME employee, Sawara is introduced to the craziness that is Kyoko, and viewers get there first Ren and Kyoko interaction.

Phew! Well, that got most of the fangirling out of my system. It’s been a Skip Beat Fangirl kind of day because chapter 129 is also out (and totally awesome).