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M³ (Memorable Manga Moments) – Skip Beat vol. 32-33

Ah, I haven’t done one of these posts for a long time. I was trying to come up with something recent, and of course this one popped in my head. I’ve been waiting for these volumes to be released because so far this is my favorite scene from the Skip Beat! manga.



Just to bring you up to speed – Ren is playing a role where he’s a dark personality and Kyoko is acting as his sister by order of the LME president to help Ren stay in character. They’re both suppose to be the wild and incestuous Heel siblings, which is way off from Kyoko’s real personality. It’s outside of her comfort zone, but so far she’s done a damn fine job acting like the lovey dovey sister when on set. But one evening when Kyoko returns from a job, Ren’s lost his character. He thinks Kyoko’s been in contact with Sho and he’s burning up with jealousy. He throws Kyoko down on the bed and pins her, demanding to know what she’s doing with Sho. Very out of character for Ren AND his Heel sibling persona BJ. Kyoko’s trying to figure out WHO THE HELL this person is. (We all know who he really is as the readers.) Instead of freaking out though, she totally flips the script on Ren. I LOVE this scene!




RenpinsKyoko_part1


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So now Ren is freaking out. Because Kyoko flipped him over and climbed on top of him. Works for Setsuka Heel, but it’s far from Kyoko. They have a little chat in that position and some other stuff, and then comes Nakamura-sama’s moment of triumph. It’s awesome. She draws Kyoko stripping Ren. She was so proud of having drawn that in the manga.




RenpinsKyoko_part3


While it looks so cool, and it’s making Ren *ahem* crazy, the reality of what’s going on in Kyoko’s head is even funnier. She’s not acting from experience, since she’s not even really had a first kiss. She’s going from a movie she saw, and that’s about all she knows, up to that point.




RenpinsKyoko_part4


So she’s trying to give a hickey and she doesn’t know how. Now it’s Ren’s turn to try to get lucky, right? He tells Kyoko that he’ll teach her how to do it right by showing her. He flips her back over on the bed and goes for her neck. Of course in Kyoko’s mind, it’s “Mr. King of the Night”, and she’s not having any of it. She actually grabs him by the face to stop him. And once again she flips the script on Ren.




RenpinsKyoko_part5


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OMG, Kyoko! It’s priceless the way she took his advance and threw it in his face. Then she makes him jealous again. Look at his reaction. He’s freaking out. He actually stops her from leaving. Kyoko/Setsu admits she was just going to go shopping, but Ren insists that she stay and he go instead. (You know, in his condition and all.)



This whole scene itself is something to really see. I left out the parts where Ren has an epiphany and makes a promise to Kyoko because it’s really sweet and you need to just read the dang books yourself. But I love how Nakamura wrote this – it gave the readers some steamy action, but didn’t take the characters too far. There’s all that tension left after the scene.  Both characters were pitting their acting skills against the other, and Kyoko actually won this round. In more ways than one. But they were and weren’t themselves here. It leaves the promise of something more happening between them when they are finally out of character.

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