The reason for my apparent "laziness" is due to my current obsession with the manga "shiawase kissa sanchoume"/ 幸福喫茶3丁目 (read here) while waiting patiently for skip beat to get more exciting. Skip Beat Chapt 151 is out but it's back to Love Me section plot again... so the interesting bit starts next chap out on 5th feb. I wish they would just focus on Ren and Shou.....otherwise I will get bored....
Back to SkS....must have mentioned somewhere last year how I love this manga "SKS" for its cute drawing. The story isnt the common "Leading girl" acts stupid/helpless and boy tries to rescue her sort of shoujo romantic. No No...I wont like such a wimpy plot. Rather in here, the storyboard is simple in Uru search for happiness. Not the sort of relationship love, but more of the all encompassing love from friends to family sort. Uru is kinda innocently simple, cute, helpful warm hearted with incredible strength.
Uru decided to give her mum and her new marriage privacy and hence she chose to shift out and exert her own independence by working in a dessert cafe Café Bohneur. The 2 leading guys (Shindou - the guy who made the lovely dessert and the other ichirou who needs to be fed constantly or will fall asleep) are both cute in their own subtle ways (looking out for Uru).
I love their simple quirky friendship and their character development. Shindou is an abandoned child at 6yr by his mother and had been plagued by nitemare over it. He was adopted by his current foster father who owns the cafe and indirectly influenced shindou to be the excellent dessert cake patisserie. Outwardly looking unfriendly and unsociable to people who doesnt know him (and his constant thundering over a snoozing Ichirou) , Uru was able to slowly draw out his inner gentle and warmth with her cheerfulness. The other employee Ichirou is a very smart guy but has a weird "illness" , where he needs to be fed constantly at a regular interval or he will just fall (literally) asleep. So much so that he even had to retain a year because he slept too much.... As the story develops, we found out why Icihrou developed this "illness" at childhood. We also witness his emerging feelings for Uru and how his uncanny intuitive sense will see him "popping" up unexpectedly, thus foiling Shindou's foster ongoing plan to get Shindou and Uru together / date privately. There is no animousity between the 2 guys and we see when Shindou really needs comfort, Ichirou had no qualms in "loaning" Uru to console Shindou.
Other characters such as Ichirou's little 6yr old brother and sakura the little 6yr old sister of a "rival" Japanese confectionary store are also both adorable.
I find it hard to explain further what draws me. Maybe its the human dynamics that made it warm and fuzzy, maybe its all the funny expressions that had kept it going for me. I especially like the stickman drawings that are intermittenly inserted that makes me laugh...
I am now up to Vol 13 - chpt 70, with 2 more volume to completion but canx find them online yet even though the raw Jap manga is already completed. The story is at an exciting crux where another mysterious famous dessert franchise boss is "blackmailing" / "toying" with Uru simple trusting nature. Now that he discover's Shindou liking for Uru, what other mean tactics will he use to try to "destroy" Uru's happiness and the love and protection she is basking in? Also, I am keen to find out wht Shindou's mum abandon him, and who exactly is his foster father....
If you like the drawing of Skip Beat, I think u will love this as well.
I heard Tokyo Pop has finally recently licensed this series. I wonder if they will make an anime or a drama series out of this because I can see the potential in this. However, I doubt the drama will be as humourous as the manga itself because some expressions made by the stickman are just hard to duplicate with a real person....
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