Act-age

I love that Ricky just barely missed getting to be on the color page.

Noooo, where's our Ricky impersonation contest?

Right? Damn cocktease.

We do get Precocious-sempai out of it, though. That should be fun.

…Ain't it sad when the child seems to be the more cynical of the two?

Certainly an interesting chapter, if more quiet than the previous arc. Does a good job of capturing that "what the hell am I doing here?" feeling.

Heh, for a moment I thought “I hate it!” was her reaction to working with corporations.

Dunno if that was intentional, but still funny.

This seems like something people say about Kei once she gets big.◊

Anyway, nice thing about the situation Kei's in now is that she should find it pretty easy not to use competing brands of mineral water.

Hey, she's had six years to become jaded. And kids can get very invested in being mature and adult, however they perceive that.

That's true… I wonder how the hell she got in the business this young though.

New chap is up. Today's problem: how do I advertise a drink that tastes like shit?

Edited by Lyendith on Apr 26th 2020 at 7:36:19 PM

So… Kei has gone from "method actor" to "walking virtual simulator" now. I'm not even surprised anymore.

I also just noticed that Satsuki's hair looks like little demon horns. It's weirdly cute.

So after a movie, two stage plays and a few commercials, now we're getting to the TV drama…

Considering Kei is entering her final high school year and the fact Sumiji's movie is planned two years ahead, it's safe to say we're gonna follow her into adulthood. That's exciting. Maybe Sumiji's movie will actually be the series' finale?

Ryoma deciding he's not going to be having with this aloof bullshit was super sweet. Kei's got some good friends.

The movie being the finale would make sense, yeah. Not sure how you'd top Kei starring in Sumiji's dream project.

I gotta say, if you're auditioning for the role of an actress, showing up playing the role of an aspiring actress is a pretty solid move.

For sure. Also, Karen kinda looks like a female Riku.

I do wonder how Kei managed to tame her Idiot Hair.

Edited by Lyendith on Jun 7th 2020 at 1:48:35 PM

At first I thought it was strange that we were seeing Kei's rivals for the arc audition without Kei, then I starting wondering if the girl with the glasses was her, but then I dismissed it, only to go "Ooooh" afterwards.

When did she find the time to change, though?

Kei: *acts so hard it sends a fellow auditioner back to relearn her craft from square one*

Also Kei: Ah, it was fun getting to tread the boards again.

And I see we've moved from every lead actor having romantic subtext with Kei to them having romantic subtext with Sumiji.

…Not that there isn't a ton of sexual tension with Kei in this scene. Or maybe I just don't want my ChiyoKei ship to be sunk.

That small line with Yuki wanting to make movies made me tick too. There might be material for a future arc there − she was the protagonist of the one-shot after all.

Ren does have a fairly cavalier attitude toward Kei's personal space. One day perhaps Kei'll work alongside a lead actor who doesn't have subtext with her. But definitely not in Sumiji's movie.

A Yuki-centric arc would be neat. Always nice to flesh out the long-running side characters.

I just finished reading this. I liked it a lot! Quite different from the manga I usually read (even though it's in WSJ), and the tension and climaxes in each arc are really well done. Does a great job of making loveable, engaging characters too (although giving each supporting actor in every arc a half-chapter or so to give them an emotional arc sometimes works, sometimes falls flat). If I have a small quibble it's that it feels like the Shinjuku Girl chapters should've been before the school play arc, as it felt like Kei's extreme popularity was a bit unearned at that moment (but was very much so a couple arcs later).

Favorite character is probably Kuroyama. He's just an enjoyable guy, and I like his dadly moments as well as when he gets to show his chops as a director. Speaking of dadly, maybe I'm just getting old, but I couldn't stop thinking (especially during chapters like the drinking boat party with Iwao) how incredibly easy it'd be for the adult characters to take advantage of Kei. I'm glad it's not that kind of series, but an orphaned beautiful teenage girl thrust into the world of acting? That'd be a very dangerous situation to be in. Her adult co-stars half-jokingly hitting on her doesn't help.

Oh, and the source I was reading had a really shoddy amateur translation for Akira's climactic chapters in the Galactic Railroad arc so I didn't really get the emotional punch from his big moment, which is kind of hilarious considering he's a bit of a Butt-Monkey.

Oh yeah, Mangaplus still hasn't filled the gap, have they?

Doesn't seem that way, I scoured the Internet and couldn't find a decent TL. Also holy shit, the Double Cast arc is like 40 chapters? I had no idea it went on that long, Galactic Railroad felt longer.

Yeah… I think it's the buildup phase that was longer, with both Hanako and Ricky being introduced, plus the whole character development for Chiyoko…

The payoff's really good though. Albeit I'm not sure Hanako should've gotten off that lightly, but eh.

So we're in for a different take on last arc's double casting, huh. As soon as they mentioned there would also be an 8-year-old version of the lead character, I knew who it was gonna be.

I love the way the story keeps coming with more ways to frame acting as a battle. What's that, Food Wars? You had to come up with some elite culinary school specifically geared around high-stakes food duels to make it work? Amateur.

"Dick-measuring contests" doesn't sound as nice.

I wouldn't really characterize most of the competitions as dick-measuring contests. In this particular case Ren's waving around her actress and person-who-knew-Kuroyama dick, but mostly it's all in good fun because it's sports shonen for theater kids.