manga: Beauty Pop Vol 1-2

[meganbmoore]

The end of the Viz shoujo I read over the weekend.

Kiri is the daughter of a hairstylist and naturally gifted, but doesn’t want to enter the family business. Despite this, she regularly gives people who are upset about their looks makeovers from goodwill. The most popular group at her school is trio of three boys called Scissors Project. Each boy is the heir to a salon, and they regularly choose a girl to give a makeover to. These girls have an amazing rate of then confessing to the boys they like, and acquiring them as boyfriends. The S.P. boys also reject girls who aren’t already pretty, or who don’t fit certain guidelines that they want to work with. So Kiri takes pity of these girls and gives them makeovers. Since she can make the less-pretty girls look as good as the prettier girls S.P. works with, and wears a cap that hides her features, she gains a reputation at school as the mysterious X. Naturally, one member of S.P.-Ochiai-decides he has to make her join, while another-Narumi-essentially declares her his mortal enemy.

I rather like Kiri and her unfashionable clothes and odd hair bob and stoic and absentminded detachment, not to mention her complete disinterest in S.P. Unfortunately, despite the back cover copy, Beauty Pop isn’t really about Kiri, but is actually about the rather generic trio of bishounen who make up S.P. If you’ve seen any group of manga male buddies, then you also know these characters, especially if you’ve ever read anything resembling a reverse harem shoujo. Also, two of them are kinda jerks, and all three seem pretty shallow. I’m also not thrilled with how many of Kiri’s makeovers seem to be Kiri giving a girl a makeover so she can impress or confess to a guy who was a jerk to her.

Not bad, but not really great either, and rather boring (for me) when it focuses on the generic bishie trio, which is most of the time. I suspect it will appeal more to people who like the male buddies aspect of shoujo. I don’t dislike that aspect, I’m just tired of how much shoujo sidelines the heroine to focus on it.

Comments

[musouka-manga.livejournal.com]

I don’t dislike that aspect, I’m just tired of how much shoujo sidelines the heroine to focus on it.

I'm a little curious as to what other series you've read that have a tendency to do this. I really like it when shoujo has male main characters--in part due to the relative rarity--so a lot of the shoujo manga on my shelves has a male POV character, but I don't think I've ever felt that shoujo as a demographic is sidelining heroines in general to focus on male friendship.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Ouran and Hana Kimi immediately jump to mind. I can't get into the Hana Yori Dango manga because I don't particularly care about F4. There have been others over the years that I dumped after a few volumes or couldn't get into the first volume for it.

So much of fiction is from a male POV that I have to really be interested when something written for teenaged girls has it too.

[vivacious-dan.livejournal.com]

Haven't seen Hanadan in awhile (used to own the entire series) but I thought a lot of the anime was told from Tsukushi's point of view? How she wasn't as rich as the other students at her school, how she was one of the few (if not only) people to really stand up to Domyouji, her feelings for Domyouji vs. Rui, etc. etc. I could be remembering wrong but I really thought it focused on Tsukushi's point of view. I know F4 were main characters but I thought Tsukushi was as well.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

It's Tsukishi and F4. I think part of it also was that, while I didn't mind them (and largely liked them) in the live action versions, I HATED them in the bit of the manga that I read, and wasn't about to read more. Esp. since I know how much of it becomes his evil mother and family angst.

[vivacious-dan.livejournal.com]

Oh. Well I never read the manga, only saw all the episodes of the anime. I didn't like the part where Domyouji slaps Tsukushi but I do remember liking them as a couple. Maybe if I watched it now I wouldn't feel the same way. I was in quite an abusive relationship myself at the time so maybe that colored my opinion of the series a bit. I remember very strongly thought that I did not want Tsukushi with Rui but with Domyouji and was really happy with the way the anime ended. But I know Hanadan isn't for everyone. I also hear that Meteor Garden and the Korean version tone Domyouji down quite a bit.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

The slap in Meteor Garden actually killed the series for me. I watched it through to the end, but half because i kept hoping they'd deal with that. Her monologue after the slap horrified me because I found it to be creepily close to her saying that it was her fault that he hit her (classic justification for an abusive relationship) and the show never addressed it, but rather, had the two actively avoid dealing with it. He went around feeling guilty for a bit and then they got back together and in the scene where they do, you see it almost come up, and then both shrugged it off. I was enjoying it until the slap, and then I was more watching in horrified fascination.

[vivacious-dan.livejournal.com]

I didn't really like Beauty Pop either. The main guys annoyed me and I found the manga sort of blah and generic.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I blame the blah and genericness on the guys.

[kakkobean.livejournal.com]

Yeah...I think that's exactly why I couldn't get much further into Beauty Pop. Kiri's an interesting character in her stoicism and how different she is from the typical shoujo female, but instead of focusing on her, the author tends to let her be overshadowed by the more boisterous characters that surround her. Kind of a let-down -_-

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I'd mind less if there was anything remotely interesting about them.

[kakkobean.livejournal.com]

*places moles on their butts*

...hmm. Needs work.

*gives Kiri a camera*

There, that's more like it.