Paradise Kiss

Edit

What would you like to edit?

SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links  

For the first time in a long while, my endeavor to find good women's manga ended with a positive result. Even though I'm still not exactly thrilled this was a nice way to expand horizons.

Art: Gotta say, while there are lots of pretty, close shots of beautiful characters in the flashy outfits, everything else is rather awful.
While some drawings like chapter and volume covers, as well as occasional manga panels have more or less realistic proportions, the rest of the manga is filled with skeleton people trying to hide inside skin bags with various degrees of success. It's inconsistent but it's probably a ... stylistic choice so your mileage may vary. I found it to be pretty bad cause fashion to me is about using clothes to bring out the best features of human physique and go even further beyond. Stick people don't work for that.
Next are backgrounds, they are absolutely dreadful, no two ways about it. It's better than something like Sailor Moon or BeruBara who completely annihilate spatial awareness.
Paradise Kiss has three types of backgrounds:
1. Absolutely nothing - nothing uncommon for women's manga, they often focus on characters and their appearance to a point where backgrounds doesn't seem to matter to them.
2. Minimal outlines - bare minimum of a background, at this point you actually have an idea of where things take place. Better than a void of nothingness but lacking in detail and not rally pretty to look at.
3. PHOTOS - straight up photos! No, even worse. It's very badly filtered photos. This practice existed in manga for a while but this is the first time I see it done this badly and lazily. Inio Asano and Mokoto Shinkai at times get criticized after someone praises them for what is essentially a traced photo but after this I'm sure people would give them credit for at least putting in effort to have it look nice and fit the style of their work.
Overall the linework is clean but rough, as in, lines themselves are often not smooth but there's no excess either. Aside from up close shots that have nice and smooth art with varying line weigh the rest is mostly flat looking.

Story: you might think Paradise Kiss is about fashion and you would be right. But it just as easily could've been acting or making music or drawing art. The fashion thing is just a setting for a character driven romance.
ParaKiss romance is rather well done, I expected another Cinderella type story that little girls and teens could insert themselves in and while there is a smidgen of that, it's not the point. The characters here are just believable enough to care about their attempt to build a relationship while having to deal with their own and each others flaws. It captures well the storm that takes place in someone's mind when they are high on love. Making irrational or impulsive decisions or coming to far off conclusions that are however easily understandable.
In the background there's a plot about all of the characters finding their place in life which I think made a compelling addition to romance. While it doesn't exactly go in depth on all of the themes is brings up, the part about growing up is decent. Our main heroine starts as an aimless student that goes wherever her mother points her to but along the way finds her true self, she finds what she wants to do in life and happiness it brings gives her courage to pursue her dreams. It's a sweet message.

Funfactor: Given how I hated most shoujo/josei manga I've read prior, I think it's worth something when I say this was decently enjoyable. I wouldn't recommend it to just anybody but if you like more complex romance that delves into psychology behind human relationship and doesn't just ride on melodrama I'd definitely recommend this.

Okay so I personally feel like this manga was not as good as it could've been. The characters each were pretty deep but I feel like they weren't explored into enough, especially the main character male. Honestly this is pretty refreshing compared to all the typical romance mangas but I felt very unsatisfied upon finishing the manga. Overall the art was beautiful but I feel that there should have been more development with the story and the characters as well.

(SPOILERS AHEAD!!) Ok so honestly the way that the manga started was very unsettling for me. She meets random people who want her to model ... and the next second she's apparently in love with the male main character. THE HECK. And it's not even a crush she flat out says "I'm in love with this dude." GOD. And he's very mysterious and some may feel like thats a good thing but I still feel like I have no idea who the heck the main male lead is and I don't like that. He just disappears to Europe at the end and poof he's gone. And in the end she ends up with the guy she first had a crush with. Omg it irks me so much because all throughout the manga she showed no emotion for the guy she ends up with. If anything i feel like she should've ended up by herself or some thing. This manga has a lot of mystery to it and definitely leaves the readers to their own interpretation. But basically to summarize what I got from the manga is a stupid girl who, yes has gone through hardships, becomes a toy for a narcissistic, shallow man and ends up not together in the end because they both know it won't work. A very realistic story that's not cliche but could've definitely been developed more. The girl still shows love for him at the end when he leaves but that thought is completely thrown in the trash when she's seen married to a different man almost 10 years later. (10 YEARS COMPLETELY NOT EXPLORED INTO.) We basically have no idea what happened to the main lead besides the tiny bit of info that he's making costumes for theater. Ugh honestly I might get hate from my review but this is just my personal opinion. I still loved the characters but ya know like I've repeatedly said, they could've been explored more into. And one last thing I actually hate the main character girl. She's very bland. Her mother was absolutely terrible to her but doesn't do anything to stand up for herself really. She forgives her mother when she gets slapped. Also the mother is very shallow. She only likes success and even favored the younger son over her daughter. But when her daughter proves that she can make it in the modeling industry she does a complete 180 and all of a sudden supports her. Such a disgusting parent. And yet the main char doesn't seem to mind and goes about her business. Ugh her relationship with her mom was one of the main reasons she felt the way she did in the beginning of the manga and I was hoping for some big thing to happen but it never did. (I don't consider her running away a big thing and neither do I consider the mother crying a big thing because right after she continues to abuse her daughter by slapping her across the face completely disregarding the fact that a model's face is everything.) Basically the mom's attitude never changed. Only thing that she did change was the fact that she supports her daughter's modeling career.

UGH god this manga was frustrating to me and to be honest would not recommend but it wasn't the worst thing I've ever read. (PS I'm sorry it might sound like i'm rambling and not make sense but I marathoned this manga in like 4 hours and feel very crazy right now.)