This series was for so many years one of the best one could read.

It has been 18 years (we are living 2020 now) since the first chapter came out and the world has changed dramatically. For instance, it’s almost funny how much difference there are in the cell phones portraited along the years. Sadly, time didn't help to arrive to the higher level it should have reached.

I’m writing this review because there is none that talks about how much it changed the last 10 years and for the worse. Sure, I agree with the previous reviews giving the higher mark to all the categories, cause back then Skip Beat! was among the best. I’ve given my notes less than perfect to show it once was perfect, but the overall one is 3. It’s almost painful to think how good it was.

Plot/Story Characters
The plot surprised me at the beginning, revenge in a shojo manga isn’t too common. But the female main character, the one that struggles to strive and shares her kindness and charm to help the people that surrounds her… all that was here and made her work gracefully and hilariously, the author made us laugh every other page and in smart ways. Besides main female character, the main male character was dark, profound and good looking. Many layers of complexity made it interesting to watch what else there was beneath them. Then the main idea of the plot that the author tried to show was even more interesting: acting and the process to create a character. How what a person lives in life plus imagination and creativity are materials and tools that can create another personality, all the inner work that people outside see as if it was magic. Then the plot and the main male character changed again, there was something unseen that could control him and we wanted to know what it was. How many characters there were under his skin? When the author showed us that not even his eyes were how we thought, I was amazed. Nakamura sensei is a genius, I thought.

I don’t know what happened then. Maybe the editors didn’t like that turn of events of the story and asked Nakamura sensei to change it and she agreed unwilfully, maybe she got some writer’s blocking, maybe she got depressed, personal issues, who knows. But since that arc on (Heel siblings) the ideas that she was trying to express started to lose consistency, the characters started to look and act differently, things were developed in odd ways. The inner world of the characters that took so many years to create, suddenly was cloudy and they were almost not recognizable. For me it was painful to read. If certain character was almost as bomb about to explode, so much people ran away from him on the streets, how come his last frame is a void eyes monster? Something a little more deadly than a zombie. What a shame.

From then on, things were left on the hook, the explanations we were so long time waiting for were not given and when they were, were utterly unsatisfactory. Main female backgrounds were so undignified. Arcs that progressed to nowhere. I could make a long list of things that were unacceptable, but I won’t give spoilers. I’m not even giving names besides Nakamura sensei’s.

Drawing Style I read previous works from the author before this one, preparing myself for the back then best manga on top of charts. So I was familiar to her lines, the eyes she used to draw and the chibi version of characters acting every 5 boxes. It was a delight to see how much she improved her art, to arrive to great levels of definition and volume in shapes. Again to decrease to the point where the handsomeness of male main character was not there, his facial expressions were on the verge of dumbness. Seriously. I’m thinking Nakamura sensei got sick of the story and gave it to her assistant. Along with the lack of consistency in the plot, lines started to be cleaner and cleaner to the point there’s no shadows. Faces are not expressing hate, love, depair, jealousy. Just some idiocy. And it goes on and on. Right now at chapter 283, the art looks more like Chika’s (Kore wa Koi no Hanashi) works to me. If I could put here two images side to side of her good art next to current works… you would have nothing left to do but agree with me on my suspicions.

Enjoyment Ah enjoyment. If you read this until this point, for sure know what comes now. Around chapter 100, it was so enjoyable that one could relate to the main characters thrill of knowing what else would happen next in their career. One was eager to know how it would develop. Maybe as years passed and our lives drifted, we started to forget how good it was and just kept on reading, trying to deal with what Nakamura sensei threw us, waiting for the day it would be back to track. But at this point of the story, we readers are just hoping it all finishes soon. As a terminal disease, we don’t want to suffer more. Others plainly went for merciful death and dropped the manga.

Overall If you are looking for a good shojo manga, to laugh and to shriek, come and read this one. But be warned. If at certain point you feel you were scammed and they changed a great manga for an average one that goes down the hill, you better stop reading. Keep the good memories and imagine what else could have happened. There are more mangas to read than life to live so you better go and start another.

I’ve not read all the longest mangas as One Piece, Detective Conan or Ranma ½. I don’t know if those authors have been able to keep on their quality and consistency. I’m starting to think mangas should not be longer than 200 chapters. If this manga was finished when main character sees her own brawling face in a mirror, I would have thought it was a master piece. Mostly. Maybe some time later Nakamura sensei could have given birth to a spin off, and we all be living in a better world. I will take that scene with main character crying due to her inability to progress in certain aspect of her life, and keep it on my memory as the final act. And I will hope with all my might for authors that love their children more dearly, as to stop profiting from them at the point where they can’t offer them (and us) something worthy.