36. skip beat!

liz, my officemate, gave me a copy of an anime series entitled "skip beat" last month, but i was only able to seriously marathon it a few days ago. the story revolves around -- well, why not let wikipedia do it for me:

Skip Beat!  is a Japanese shōjo manga (read: target demographic is a young female audience) by Yoshiki Nakamura. It is the story of Kyoko Mogami  a 16-year-old girl who discovers that her childhood friend and romantic goal, Sho Fuwa, only keeps her around to act as a maid and earn his living expenses, as he works his way to become the top pop idol in Japan. Furious and heart broken, she vows to get revenge by beating him in show business.

with only 25 episodes for its one and only season, i am already anticipating the familiar woebegone feeling of losing something extraordinary a little too soon. (my whole life i have laughed with and mourned for anime friends who have left me fuller for our shared experiences and emptier for their being fictional. you could say i'm used to it now, but it never really becomes easier.) the premise is a bit silly, and skip beat has all the trademark exaggeratedly kawaii japanese humor down pat, e.g., wiggly arms, sweat drops, growing noses, evil glints in the eyes, waves of aura emanating from a particularly affected character. but i am also delighted to find that it has, in generous doses, that trademark japanese heart that, for all its wacky animation, resounds deeply in its remarkable and quiet moments. (in a showbiz setting, no less!)

last night's episode 9 was about maria, the seven-year old granddaughter of the president of LME, the entertainment agency that kyoko has joined in her quest to rival and destroy her first douchebag love, sho. (is anyone willing to tutor me on how not to abuse commas? i seem to, like, have a natural flair for it, and, so, commas too often become, well, my grammar doormat.) traumatized by the death of her mother from a plane crash, maria bears the guilt of having her mother fly home from overseas upon her request. maria feels that her father blames her for the accident, leading to an emotional distance between the two.

i liked this episode because of how kyoko, tasked with befriending maria, was able to make maria see that her father actually loves her. kyoko did this by lashing out offensively, telling maria all about her father's shortcomings, in effect prompting the girl to defend her father and realize for herself the magnitude of the little gestures of affection her father has actually given over time. (reverse psychology, anyone?) i liked it because it particularly spoke to me, and my ofw parents, my abandoned child syndrome. in the end, maria realized that the distance was there because she let the silence grow, by not sharing her stories and not answering her father's emails. it was her, the victim, who was also the perpetrator. and i found myself tearing up over the same (very belated) realization.: )

i, the perennial storyteller, let the silence grow. i let it breathe and come alive, that every footstep had to be whisper-soft, every chuckle a crooked smile. but then that's another story.: ) anyway, suffice it to say that i look forward to another skip beat marathon! that's it, i really wanna go home na -- goodbye, beloved, battered commas!:D