From the back cover:
Kyoko’s perfect chance to wreak her revenge on Sho isn’t going as well as she’d hoped. In fact, her rage is so consuming that she forgets she’s supposed to be acting and tries to throttle Sho for real. That’s not her only problem. Sho still thinks he owns Kyoko body and soul, but his manager is worried that Kyoko might be stealing his heart!
Review:
One of the things I like best about Skip Beat! is its originality in dealing with obstacles and twists in relationships. Ren can grow angry about a work-related action of Kyoko’s and it makes perfect sense in the context of the story without seeming like some artifically-induced plot point like the appearance of some random girl who used to fancy him in middle school or something like that.
Likewise, Kyoko’s friendship with Moko has interesting conflicts—this time Kyoko feels hurt that Moko won’t share her successes and woes, when Kyoko is very open in that regard. I haven’t seen the process of developing and maintaining a good friendship ever really explored in a manga before.
As much as I like those elements, my favorite part of the volume actually is the culmination of Kyoko’s job working with Sho. After her actor spirit finally wins against her hate and she completes the job, they have another run-in where she brings up more points regarding his treatment of her. Sho gains a little more depth as a character, and I find I actually kind of want to see more of him now. His reactions to her progress and criticisms are strangely gratifying.
I love the parts with Moko’s family (I’m not sure if it was in this volume or 9), but you’re right, it’s fantastic that Moko and Kyoko’s friendship gets such a lot of story time dedicated to it. It’s a real shame when romantic interests are pursued in other shoujo series at the expense of any sort of normal female social interactions for the heroine. Fruits Basket is the only series I can think of where the heroine’s friends aren’t phased out or only occasionally included as a side story or afterthought. Of course, I usually use Hana-Kimi as my yardstick for “average shoujo series,” and that’s probably a little unfair since it takes place at a boy’s school… but still.
I’ve only read 4 volumes of Love*Com, but so far the heroine’s friends are sticking around, though one got assigned to a different class in their second year of school, so less has been seen of her. It probably helps in that case that the boy she fancies is also part of this same group of friends.
I bet you’d like that series, too. *pimp pimp* 🙂