Glass no Kamen

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Glass Mask is a classic Manga with an engaging, romantic yet deep and emotional storyline. It’s a world of people who have a strong passion for acting and are constantly striving to fulfill their own dreams. Behind those masks that the actors wear on stage are heart-touching stories about friendship, love and the everlasting passion for performing arts of characters whose fates are tied up with the work “Crimson Goddess”.

Have you ever wondered why acting, stage, role are so enchanting to artists? They can even give up their precious life for some brief moments to reverently live up to their characters on stage in front ... of thousands of audiences. Since ancient times, people have always cast prejudices towards artists. Even in Western countries, people still see artists as some sort of entertainment tool at parties or even some items which can be transacted with money. In the Asian region, especially a country with a rich history spanning thousands of years like Japan, the artists more or less do not stand a firm place in society. Through many ups and downs, even with the harsh truth that is the rule of elimination, they still live devotedly for their career with all their passion.

In terms of creative thinking and the true value of acting, it’s indeed we probably can not talk over it all. However, through 49 volumes of Glass Mask, Suzue Miuchi has skilfully portrayed a vividly lifelike picture of artists’ world, their struggles and efforts, what happens behind the stage and even the loss just to be alive for the passion to present in the limelight. The moment the artists step on the stage, they are no longer being themselves but rather assimilate themselves into their characters, having to wear the invisibly transparent “glass mask” on their face to cover their identity. Still having that same face but the person on stage isn’t a bashful and timid Maya girl but instead is a beautiful and noble character like Princess Aldis or a wild wolf Jane or even a quintessence of the millennial plum tree – “Crimson Goddess”.

The masks that they worn aren’t fictitious like ordinary people would use to assign the artists. Those are but the result of serious work and are truly valuable and worthy of respect, knowing the artists have put their heart and soul into their emotional and sublime performances in order to satisfy the audience. But alas, life is always full of insidious people who harbor hatred, envy and are willing to harm each other for their own benefit. The life of an artist is no exception, sometimes the stage is actually the most ferocious battlefield. When people have dreams, they live meaningfully. With extraordinary energy and effort, little Maya has overcome everything to achieve her ultimate purpose which she’s dreamed of, living as a theatre actress and playing many different roles on stage. To Maya, feeling a character isn’t limited to subjective emotions but is a process of striving to discover and live rightfully to the psychology of the character that she will act. When referring to young actors, people will normally have unfriendly looks to them as being impulsive, arrogant, aggressive, egotistical and likewise. But Maya is not among them. She may be different people on stage, can wear countless masks of all shapes and sizes when acting but when she is herself, she lives wholeheartedly for her friends and fairly competes with her biggest rival – Ayumi.

If you hate cliches and tropes in some Manga where the main characters being too perfect that makes them unrealistic and unrelatable then your worry is unnecessary. The two heroines of Glass Mask – Maya and Ayumi are not stereotypical, they live rightfully with their human emotions. Regarding Maya, apart from her talent for acting, she can not even remember a simple mathematical formula. When she is angry or hates someone, she will react vehemently without giving in and one of her victims is the Daito Art’s cold and heartless machine – Masumi. Maya hates him because he indirectly caused the death of her beloved mother and also tried to suppress her teacher Tsukikage as well as her small group.

Talk about Ayumi, who is called a genius and was born to play the main role, her image is akin to a happy, beautiful, light-hearted, talented princess. She is very confident in herself but never shows any sign of arrogance. She is well aware that she must grow mature and stand up on her own two feet as she can not live under the influence of her family forever. When facing Maya, a redoubtable rival who is even more talented than her in terms of acting, it’s natural that she may develop jealousy and find ways to harm Maya but on the contrary, she has always been respecting Maya and regards Maya as her biggest opponent. There’s even one time when Ayumi retaliated upon the person who harmed Maya, causing Maya to leave the stage and be ostracized. She always takes Maya as a goal to strive, to fight for the right to perform as the main actress of the superb work “Crimson Goddess” because only when competing with Maya that she can truly feel “I can do it”. In Ayumi’s eyes, ignoring all objective situations and the idea of being rivals to each other, Maya is a good friend who can become her confidante because they both share the same passion for acting and stage.

Even Masumi, the man is notorious for being called a workaholic because he never pays any heed to anything besides his business. However, standing in front of the innocent smile of the pure soul of a little girl 11 years younger than him that he realized his heart started beating unrhythmically from that moment. Masumi in reality isn’t as cold-blooded as everyone has ever thought of. It’s just his past is too painful and tragic that he wants everything to be rested, always aspire to become the most successful one, ignores everything and doesn’t need to love someone. In spite of that, since the human heart inherently has pulsation, it can’t help but vibrate and little Maya is the flame that melted the thick layer of ice covering his heart. As an adopted child himself, he has to suffer unforgettable obsessions about his poor mother who was estranged because his adoptive father just lived with the memory and adored the image of “Crimson Goddess”. Within Masumi’s subconscious, “Crimson Goddess” feels so distant but also very clear and lucid. Seeing that beautiful portrait got burned to ashes in the fire gave him haunting memories. At first, his purpose of obtaining the exclusive right for Daito Art to legally perform the play “Crimson Goddess” only has a goal to bury his tumultuous past but later, after knowing Maya that he wants to do it to see the image of a goddess through the girl that he falls head over heels in love with.

“Mr. Purple Roses”, “Daddy-Long-Legs”, those are aliases used by Maya to refer to the person who has always been supporting her since the early days. How ironic it is when that person is none other than Masumi, the one who Maya hates the most. As a classic Shoujo, the borderline between love and hate is really vague and often hard to define. Still, it’s an endless topic that will never make readers get bored because it reflects the purest form of emotions dwelling deep inside each person’s heart. The love between Masumi and Maya here is as beautiful as the stars in the sky when all resentments and hatreds seem to have vanished. On the opening day of the play “Forgotten Wilderness”, an unforeseen circumstance happened when a terrible typhoon directly hit the region, preventing people from coming to the theatre. However, despite that adversity, Masumi still went out of his way to come in the middle of the typhoon only to keep his promise to Maya. On that night, there was only one person sitting in the auditorium. Stewart’s blue scarf that “Jane” used to dry off the water droplet remained on the face of the “Daito Art’s machine”, that scarf was used only once on the first night. And “Mr. Purple Roses” finally made his appearance, he’s always been there, been tacitly supporting her for many years. It’s that event that set the stage of fate for their love to bear fruit. Whatever will be, will be. Later, in the hometown of “Crimson Goddess”, after seeing Ms. Tsukikage’s sublime performance, Maya started thinking about the love of the goddess. And just like that, as if guided by fate, Maya put on the robe that used to be worn by the goddess and at that moment, paranormal events occurred. Meeting Masumi on the other side of the river, she realized how fervent her love for he is. Their souls were likely to escape from their bodies and were about to join together and become one. But the reality is harsh, that moment is but an illusion that only happened in their own mind, or perhaps their two also didn’t have belief in the miracle.

In “Glass Mask”, not only do we find the love between young people and their passion for art but also understand the hardships that they have to go through since their path isn’t strewn with roses. Just as Yin and Yang are the two aspects of Taiji, our world also has bright side and dark side. While there’re people who choose the path of trampling on others to move up, there’re also people who choose to move up of their own will. Solidarity is strength, true friendship is always present as long as we have mutual trust and success is inevitable if we work earnestly with the love for stage. That’s what the Tsukikage group and the Ikkakuju group did. Even though they are two different groups, they became friends and teamed up for a performance of the play “A midsummer night's dream” that attracted more than 6000 audiences. That was also the stepping stone to bring Maya back to the stage after being ostracized. The friendship between Ayumi and Maya can be compared to princess and cinderella yet they still become good friends with each other. The kinship-like relationship between Maya and Rei and their co-stars in the Tsukikage group is also significant. Especially, the teacher-student relationship between the former “Crimson Goddess” – Ms. Tsukikage and Maya, Ayumi contributes to putting this Manga to its climax. Some people may say Ms. Tsukikage being strict and stern because she was hasty to have an heiress for “Crimson Goddess” as she didn’t want that play to be wasted. Some even said she’s too selfish. But “Spare the rod and spoil the child”, if you thoroughly look at it again you will realize her motivation. Were Ms. Tsukikage really that selfish, she would always live in the past when she was acting as “Crimson Goddess” and would never relinquish it nor give it to anyone. But she did not do it as she acknowledged that “Crimson Goddess” doesn’t belong to her alone. It is the quintessence of stage and acting, a classic work that is worthy of being handed down to posterity. She wanted to revive the divine spirit hidden inside the plum tree through another image and she devoted herself to it. It may sound extravagant but “Crimson Goddess” had already become her life.

There’re much more things in this Manga to discuss and analyze but I’d like to stop it here. And also, I want to spend a few words to appreciate Miuchi-sensei for creating “Glass Mask”, knowing that she barely has any knowledge about stage and acting before writing this Manga. Between Maya and Ayumi, who will earn the right to perform “Crimson Goddess”? Will Maya and Masumi become lovers? The hiatus has been prolonging for 10 years but I hope one day we can see the ending of this story. With 50 million copies being sold, Glass Mask has become the second highest-selling Shoujo Manga ever made. Old but gold, despite how obsolescent it may appear to be and how unsung it is in modern-day industry/market, this Manga is undeniably one of the classic masterpiece with a magnificent character-driven story that hooked people who’re in love with stage play in particular or merely a Shoujo Romance fan in general.

Ok so after much contemplation on whether or not I should read this, I gave it a shot. Honestly my first impression was "holy crap this manga is over 50 years old and its still ongoing! And dam this art style is old and not really my cup of tea." Despite that I swallowed my doubts and read on.

This manga is actually really captivating. The storyline keeps you on edge and it didn't take me long for me to get over the fact that I thought the characters were ugly. If you enjoyed skip beat, this is a more serious version. Skip beat is ... very romance driven as well as comedic; meanwhile, glass mask really focuses in on Maya and her development as an actor. The romance is present but it's not really romance driven per say. Maya encounters men in her life and passes them along similar to real life relationships. Some guys stuck with her while others just vanish. Albeit the whole love development with a guy 11 years older is a bit bizarre, its a thing that i've come to terms with lmao. Other than that I can't help but cheer on Maya and her conquests as an amateur actor.

The portrayal of the emotions of each character are pretty great as well. Kutos to the mangaka for depicting it so well. I've come to appreciate the mangaka's art style. Inside of this manga are many other stories played out by Maya. It's interesting to see her act out her roles. It made me feel like I was part of the audience in the manga watching her and getting hooked onto the plot of the play. It's pretty interesting!

The only real downside I would have to say is that the mangaka is taking way too long that it's actually kinda ridiculous. I heard speculation that up to volume 49 had been released but they just haven't been translated. But I'm not sure if it's the old version thats out or the new version? I heard that the the mangaka wasn't satisfied with the old version because it diverged from the plot too much into romance. So she refused to have the volumes to continue to be published and rewrote the volumes? Idk these are all rumors I read on google. And I also heard volume 50 would be the last but who knows. Ugh idk dam I can't imagine how people who have read this manga from the beginning feel about waiting this long for this to be finished lol.

Overall if you wanna get into a manga focused about acting with a hint of romance this is for you! But honestly if you get hooked you're gonna have to join the band wagon of having to wait for updates for who knows how many more years.

[edited review to make it more professional-ish, that's what I thought]

Glass Mask a.k.a Garasu no Kamen is definitely one of the oldest manga that is still running on serialization until now. Celebrating its 36th anniversary this January 2012 -- yes it was first serialized on 1976 -- this manga continues on growing even after it's this old, and we still can't guess how is the ending going to be like.

The story revolves around an almost good-for-nothing Maya Kitajima, but has a really great passion for anything about dramas and acting. Once her buried talent is discovered by one of the most renowned actress that had ... retired Tsukikage Chigusa, she continued to pursue her dream on playing the most famous work, Crimson Goddess, which was originally Tsukikage's. But she isn't the only candidate-- there's also another girl that Tsukikage picked to be, which is Ayumi Himekawa, a really well-known actress on the same age as her. Ayumi is like the counterpart of Maya-- she's smart, beautiful, famous.. but who knows that Maya is actually more talented than Ayumi?

Up until this point, the plot is really well-made, original, and awesome!! We're being shown on how Maya continually grows throughout the series, and with awesome dramas and actings, things won't get boring. This manga is the type that will hook your attention since the very beginning on reading this series, and will make you eager to read more. Oh, I forgot to mention that this manga, just like other shoujo mangas, also shows bits of romance. But the romance ain't no ordinary romance. No spoilers from me, you can just read, see, and get stunned on how the love bloomed so beautifully between Maya and that particular man. Maybe there's some cliches in the romance, but nevermind that, it's still awesome. Their love is eternal, dear to all of us Glass Mask fans.

The characters, slowly but surely, grow in this series. Maya, who was so timid and not confident, began to realize her true potential and never gives up on pursuing her dreams. Ayumi, who was so cocky in the beginning, turned out to be a real gentlewoman (?), she admits defeats and always does her best to win from Maya after that.

Don't speak about characters and story because in all those aspects, this series is a complete masterpiece. The only decent point is the art, which is your classic old 80's, nothing remarkable, but the mangaka is really good on drawing emotions and delivering it to the readers. You might found the art funny at the first time, but believe me, as the story goes on and you keep on reading, you'll get used to it.

It's really cool to see how things change from the first chapter up til the latest chapter out, and believe me, you won't regret reading this.