It’s the way it was for many of us, I think. The relationship is an honest one, both sweet and bitter, with some hard times, and some things that will remain treasured memories for all of Yukari’s life. I think older teenagers could too, if you’re comfortable with them reading about a girl experiencing her coming of age, including her first sexual relationship. I could relate to all of them on some level. They’re all very human, and the story grows out of their foibles and their strengths, and is told with a self-referential humor that made even awkward moments very funny. They seem stock from a basic description, but Yazawa-sensei gives them all distinct, well-rounded personalities. But once I picked it up I found myself dragged into the characters’ stories. I put off reading it for a long time because I had no interest in fashion, and the tall thin characters seemed a bit odd. But one thing is sure, she’ll never forget what happened those few months when she changed from a girl into a young woman. Through it all they try to make this impossible dress, the culmination of all their dreams.Įventually Yukari finds out that perhaps she didn’t want what she thought at first, or even second. There are fights at home, questions at school, questions from her friends about what she’s doing, what she really wants, and she’s sitting in the middle trying to figure it all out for the first time in her life. She starts to rebel, spending time away from her books, helping them, wanting to be a part of it. Yukari gets to know each of the characters, to understand why they made the choices they did, and why their dress is so important to them. The way she portrays the flirtation shows Yazawa-sensei’s skill (remember, start on the right and read left). I love this scene, where George “happens” to show up at the library Yukari is studying at, and proceeds to draw her in despite herself. Her attraction to him, to their utter difference, and her need for the ID pulls her toward their little group.
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He seems to be everything she is not, free from all of society’s constraints, self-confident, fashionable, popular. George is… handsome, exotic, an unknown, and she’s fascinated and annoyed at the same time. It’s her misfortune that the fourth stranger of the bunch, George, picks it up. They need a model, but she needs to study and has no time for their games, and she storms off, accidentally dropping her school ID. One day on her way home from school she encounters a group of strangers who think she’d make the perfect model for their year-end design competition, and very strange they are: A punk with chains and pins in his face, a beautiful willowy transvestite with a penchant for 40’s style clothing, a child-like woman whose face has nothing to do with her age or experience.
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She’s also full of anger, but doesn’t stop to think about why. Yukari is a typical grade A high school student, in love with a boy she’s too shy to talk to, spending all her time studying for upcoming college entrance exams because that’s her mom’s wish. It’s fairly short, at five volumes, and all of them are in print in English.
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Paradise Kiss is one of her older series (she also writes NANA, a current favorite josei title of mine and millions of others). It changes from ornate dÃÂ ©cor to beautifully delicate line drawings of her characters from frame to frame. Her art style reminds me of a mix of punk and art nouveau, with pop art of the sixties thrown in. She writes books that are closer to chick-lit, and more adult than many series out there, both in subjects and the way she handles them. The mangaka is Ai Yazawa, probably the most popular writer of manga for young women (josei) in Japan right now, and deservedly so. All of these add up to a coming of age story that will hit home with most of us, even while taking us places we’ve never been.
Haute couture, a bitter but studious high school girl, a group of misfit designers, one of the most fascinating and frustrating heroes I’ve met in manga. There was an old bar and a pool table, and three sewing machines. Dizzying music pulsated and bounced off the loud pink walls. Sweet exotic scents filled its every corner, as if someone was making candies in a Chinese import store. To reach it, one had to go down a flight of stairs to the cute little door. “The basement store was removed from the main road by a maze of side streets. Rated OT 16+ (sex scenes, but only showing what you’d see on network TV.) Jan A Review Category / A Reviews / Book Reviews / Manga chick-lit / coming-of-age / fashion / Manga 26 Comments ApREVIEW: Manga Review: High Fashion and Coming of Age: Paradise Kiss by Ai Yazawa
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