Skip Beat! Volume 28

Skip Beat! Volume 28 by Yoshiki Nakumura

I always enjoy a new volume of Skip Beat! but I’m enjoying the most recent story arc even more than usual because there’s more emotional payoff with Kyoko and Ren being forced into more contact with each other as they prepare for their reality-tv like roles as the gothed-out Cain siblings. They still have to wrap up their current projects though, and things get dicey when Ren has a near miss with a potential accident when he is rehearsing some stunt driving. The experience puts him in a bit of a fugue state, where he relives a dramatic accident in his past before he became “Ren Tsuruga.” Kyoko is filming nearby and rushes to Ren’s set and she is the only person that he responds to after the accident. Later on, Ren indulges in an odd psychological ritual where he cooks a horrible omurice and eats it as an act of endurance. Kyoko comes along to help him out and witnesses Ren putting himself together again, despite the unfortunate specter of Death that hovers nearby as they consume their dinner.

Kyoko and Ren were really both destined to be actors because with their pasts, traumatic in different ways, inhabiting a role becomes a refuge. I think in this next story arc we’ll see how much of “Ren Tsuruga” is a role and how much is actually Ren. Kyoko’s on the verge of a change too. Everyone that she meets seems struck by the sense that she’s matured, and as she spends more time with Ren when he’s at his most vulnerable it seems like she might finally be on the verge of acknowledging her feelings. Overall, this was a very satisfying volume of Skip Beat!

Review copy provided by the publisher