Skip Beat is about Kyouko who follows her childhood friend Sho to Tokyo when he becomes a music star. She dedicates her life to him but he only uses her and then tosses her aside. Kyouko not allowing herself to be thus insulted vows to get revenge by becoming more successful than him in the entertainment industry and begins acting for his company's competitor.
Story: 8
Yes this is yet another shoujo about being a star in Japan's entertainment industry but unlike others it focuses less on the idea of being a star and much more on what it means to be an actor or actress. The anime displays acting as an artform and applies to it the wonderful Japanese perspective of everything being beautiful. As an active participant in theatre myself I could really understand and admire Kyouko's love of acting. I could also appreciate how realistic the anime was in that it explained the characters actions in the present by showing what had happened in the past to make them that way.
Art: 8
The art is good just kinda awkward in some places but appeasing enough to the eye.
Sound: 10
The music is very good and compliments the anime. The voice acting is fantastic and really helps provoke emotion.
Characters: 10
The characters make this anime each of them grows and works through problems of the past and present. They are all strong characters and it's really easy to appreciate their struggles.
When I first started watching I didn't really like Kyouko. I remember thinking that she overreacted when Sho used her and that she should have just gone on with her life and that revenge was stupid. I also thought she was stupid for not realizing she was being used in the first place. But in the end I loved Kyouko because the anime explained to me why she had done all those things and while the reasons may have been stupid you could really sympathise with her. Kyouko is actually a great character she's determined, intelligent, strong, and just plain awesome for a shoujo lead.
I liked Ren right off the bat because he was so down to earth and you just don't find that kind of calm maturity in many shoujo. While he has problems he mostly settles them in the quietness of his mind rather than displaying them to the whole world. I also liked that while he was serious he was also kind and even though he doesn't really need to grow as a character he still does.
Sho is nothing but a spoiled teenager that you are set up and meant to hate but in an interesting twist of events I found myself actually caring about him. Rather than in most anime the antagonist is not clearly defined at first you think it's Sho but end up realizing its just life. Sho has common weaknesses that almost everyone struggles with and while those weaknesses originally make him the bad guy they are eventually twisted into making the audience sympathise with his struggles. In the end you realize that he isn't a bad person or character. This kind of well thought out deep and dynamic character is what makes this show good.
Anyway this show has awesome characters.
Enjoyment: 10
I really loved this anime. At first when the groundwork was being laid I didn't really know what to think and almost quit after the second episode but I'm really glad I didn't because its awesome. Part of what threw me off is the very Japanese sense of humor that was more extreme than I had ever seen but after I got used to it I would almost bust a gut laughing at every random hand coming from mouth clip (and there are quite a few of these). I have rewatched this two times and it never gets boring.
Overall: 9
This is definitely up in my top shoujos and even in my top ten overall anime. I liked it as much as fruits basket and in some ways more because the main character was more realistic. It has a good story and wonderful characters and should simply be watched and enjoyed.
