Glass no Kamen

Ok so after much contemplation on whether or not I should read this, I gave it a shot. Honestly my first impression was "holy crap this manga is over 50 years old and its still ongoing! And dam this art style is old and not really my cup of tea." Despite that I swallowed my doubts and read on.

This manga is actually really captivating. The storyline keeps you on edge and it didn't take me long for me to get over the fact that I thought the characters were ugly. If you enjoyed skip beat, this is a more serious version. Skip beat is very romance driven as well as comedic; meanwhile, glass mask really focuses in on Maya and her development as an actor. The romance is present but it's not really romance driven per say. Maya encounters men in her life and passes them along similar to real life relationships. Some guys stuck with her while others just vanish. Albeit the whole love development with a guy 11 years older is a bit bizarre, its a thing that i've come to terms with lmao. Other than that I can't help but cheer on Maya and her conquests as an amateur actor.

The portrayal of the emotions of each character are pretty great as well. Kutos to the mangaka for depicting it so well. I've come to appreciate the mangaka's art style. Inside of this manga are many other stories played out by Maya. It's interesting to see her act out her roles. It made me feel like I was part of the audience in the manga watching her and getting hooked onto the plot of the play. It's pretty interesting!

The only real downside I would have to say is that the mangaka is taking way too long that it's actually kinda ridiculous. I heard speculation that up to volume 49 had been released but they just haven't been translated. But I'm not sure if it's the old version thats out or the new version? I heard that the the mangaka wasn't satisfied with the old version because it diverged from the plot too much into romance. So she refused to have the volumes to continue to be published and rewrote the volumes? Idk these are all rumors I read on google. And I also heard volume 50 would be the last but who knows. Ugh idk dam I can't imagine how people who have read this manga from the beginning feel about waiting this long for this to be finished lol.

Overall if you wanna get into a manga focused about acting with a hint of romance this is for you! But honestly if you get hooked you're gonna have to join the band wagon of having to wait for updates for who knows how many more years.

This manga had me absolutely hooked. I started reading it and simply couldn't stop. I sat in my chair for about 24 hours and ended up finishing the 169 chapters in one go.

The story is an interesting one as we follow a young girl who dreams to become an actress. She has an abundance of raw talent and passion and then continues to develop her techniques and skills throughout the story. The manga introduces a wealth of different characters who are not always what they seem to be but are ultimately human. They have their own pasts that have shaped their decisions and actions which keeps the reader on her toes.

Instead of just giving some key moments the author has insisted allowed the reader to follow almost the entire play which in itself provides exciting new stories that are considered to be classics in real life as well.

Maya's (the protagonist) rival is a girl who has enormous dedication and has, since she was a child, trained to become the best actress of all. Their rivalry is an interesting one as they both respect each other tremendously and also share an understanding of what it means to live for acting.They both improve and get to see things from different perspectives in order to win the leading role in The Crimson Goddess.

Romance also plays a big part in this manga as different people fall in love with Maya while she explores her own feelings for the people surrounding her. The love that fills this manga is sweet and pure and sure to fill the reader with warmth and sunlight.

A key message in this manga is to never give up and to work hard for what you love. It's shown brilliantly and fills the reader with determination as well. Personally I found the art a bit different from I'm used to but I became comfortable with it after a few chapters. All in all I thought this was a masterpiece and I would definitely recommend it to everyone who's looking for an enjoyable feel-good-manga with substance and a good plot.

[edited review to make it more professional-ish, that's what I thought]

Glass Mask a.k.a Garasu no Kamen is definitely one of the oldest manga that is still running on serialization until now. Celebrating its 36th anniversary this January 2012 -- yes it was first serialized on 1976 -- this manga continues on growing even after it's this old, and we still can't guess how is the ending going to be like.

The story revolves around an almost good-for-nothing Maya Kitajima, but has a really great passion for anything about dramas and acting. Once her buried talent is discovered by one of the most renowned actress that had retired Tsukikage Chigusa, she continued to pursue her dream on playing the most famous work, Crimson Goddess, which was originally Tsukikage's. But she isn't the only candidate-- there's also another girl that Tsukikage picked to be, which is Ayumi Himekawa, a really well-known actress on the same age as her. Ayumi is like the counterpart of Maya-- she's smart, beautiful, famous.. but who knows that Maya is actually more talented than Ayumi?

Up until this point, the plot is really well-made, original, and awesome!! We're being shown on how Maya continually grows throughout the series, and with awesome dramas and actings, things won't get boring. This manga is the type that will hook your attention since the very beginning on reading this series, and will make you eager to read more. Oh, I forgot to mention that this manga, just like other shoujo mangas, also shows bits of romance. But the romance ain't no ordinary romance. No spoilers from me, you can just read, see, and get stunned on how the love bloomed so beautifully between Maya and that particular man. Maybe there's some cliches in the romance, but nevermind that, it's still awesome. Their love is eternal, dear to all of us Glass Mask fans.

The characters, slowly but surely, grow in this series. Maya, who was so timid and not confident, began to realize her true potential and never gives up on pursuing her dreams. Ayumi, who was so cocky in the beginning, turned out to be a real gentlewoman (?), she admits defeats and always does her best to win from Maya after that.

Don't speak about characters and story because in all those aspects, this series is a complete masterpiece. The only decent point is the art, which is your classic old 80's, nothing remarkable, but the mangaka is really good on drawing emotions and delivering it to the readers. You might found the art funny at the first time, but believe me, as the story goes on and you keep on reading, you'll get used to it.

It's really cool to see how things change from the first chapter up til the latest chapter out, and believe me, you won't regret reading this.

Kitajima Maya has a 'pathological obsession' as one character put it, with acting. Poor, doggedly-stubborn Kitajima loves anything theater; movies, series, operas, anything you can watch and has actors: you get the picture.

Poor (ofcourse, she's poor!) and lives with her mother (she lives with her mother!? How come she's not dead yet so Kitajima can move into her late-grandmother-whom-she-didn't-know-existed-until-her-inheritance's estate! Sheesh! People who try to be creative!) who works and lives in a store and has to support seemingly almost mentally-handicapped Kitajima.

And then the key scene, like in Romeo and Juliet when Tybalt watches Romeo watching Juliet...

*Building suspense...*

Is when a bat-shit crazy old hag from the underworld sees Kitajima, Maya acting for some kids and scares Kitajima with her bat-shit-crazy-old-hag-from-the-underworld look and sends the kids screaming and crying home starting a nationwide witch-hunt in Japan. Edit {take out ya dummies} the screaming kids and witch-hunt and you got yourself the opening of Glass Mask.

To be honest, I liked the characters. I can't complain much about them because as far as original goes; they were original. There was some decomposing of the characters around and after volume 25 but not enough for me to say that they were unoriginal because they were. I gotta say that they were tasteful, the characters ofcourse, even though Kitajima seems to have Disassociative Identity Disorder (D.I.D.) which isn't picked up on (I don't know why). Add the illustrations and you've got yourselves a semi-thumbs-up which brings me to...

The illustrations {in the beginning} were an annoying amount of slaps on the back to the illustrator for great work. You can smell (not see) the amount of sweat, blood, time (and maybe some grease in there too) spent on making them. At a time when you couldn't copy paste everything and change the author's name and call something original.

*Sighs*

But yes, as time passes the art becomes more and more modern; a.k.a. more and more vague and the characters become only a shadow of their original detail.

*Sighs again*

Enjoyment? Not top marks. No glued eyes on the screen but it WAS pretty enjoyable though I wouldn't say it was addictive but it was nice to have a balanced story to read (see, I'm writing like Kitajima lives): not too attention-grabbing but not drool-worthy.

Overall, even though it's has been a whole lifetime since it began, it's still ongoing [surely it will end sometime, it's not like Detective Conan, right?!] and still attracting more not-senior-citizens audiences as well as senior citizens readers [NO discrimination between the readers (the more the merrier, hey?)] and still earning points; it still has a good plot, tasteful characters and not-Jjang-story-like illustrations.

Overall, a good read.

It's taken a while for me to get around to reading this - after being recommended a LONG time ago. And now I'm hooked and cringing inwardly at the cliffhanger it's left me on after reading 32 volumes and 4 chapters in one chunk =.O.

Admittedly I wasn't a huge fan of the art which was why I put it off. It grew on me though - and to be honest, the story more than makes up for it. There's so much plot and story as well as character development and seeing them grow and change. There's a lot of different arcs, each one presenting new challenges which helps the character/s grow.

Definitely in my top 10! Don't let the art turn you off starting it :)

Do the petty bickering and shoddy attempts at "comedy" in Skip Beat annoy you? Does the angular, ugly art annoy you? Well, here is a much more coherent, fun to look at alternative!

So what exactly does this manga offer? In terms of story, it offers something fairly unique in terms of a manga about actors and actresses, which is a fairly complete walkthrough of several stories. Others all offer summaries, or perhaps a bit more, but nothing like this. This is bad in one way, which is that the story drags on forever (decades, in this case!), but is great in that you get to live through several stories within the guise of the greater story. Some of these stories definitely have touching moments too, so it is not just some bunch of text thrown at you.

The art has that real old school feel of goofiness and skinny, "inadequate" art that is, despite its lacking a perfectly human realism, is so fun to look at (ch. 26 p. 12). The biggest artistic flaw was flowers being randomly thrown in several pages. Granted, I do not get what purpose it is for (to remind us of "purple rose"?), but it unnecessarily wastes space regardless.

Now some spoilers, so stop reading if it will bother you. I want to point out what I thought were weak versus strong storylines or aspects.

The storyline of her friends thinking she abandoned them is utterly unbelievable...no one is that willing to believe a BEST FRIEND abandoned you; it has to be bludgeoned into you! She even came to make up, which should have resolved it, or at least allowed a chance for explanation with a simple phone call.

The storyline where Maya is drugged makes the least sense of the whole manga - how would letting the public know she was forcibly attacked make matters WORSE instead of better? instead she was blamed for partying with them and getting drugged up! I guess the author thought it was more dramatic to have her lose everything, but the author was dead wrong; everyone turning on her to such a degree is ridiculous, literally impossible in real life short of being involved in a rape/murder/pedophilia scandal or something of that high level (ch 74-80ish)

She became a superstar...and got NOTHING out of it? no savings? really?! (ch 80). She becomes destitute repeatedly in this manga, and it makes no sense, kind of like how Tsukikage being destitute also makes no sense. Again, perhaps it is supposed to be dramatic and develop Maya's character, but it really just is senseless and dead wrong.

Now besides just the interesting play stories alone, examples of really nice storylines are like:

The duality of Ayumi being genuinely blessed (and having such a ridiculous amount of advantages over Maya, least of all having started acting 10 years earlier), yet also also genuinely despising being rewarded for her parents' status rather than her merit does make Ayumi more interesting, especially that it is the specific reason given that she wants to play the crimson goddess so badly.

Ayumi taking revenge specifically for Maya was kind of interesting, for the time she became blacklisted by illicit means. It gave a new level of depth to the rivalry, although it took it pretty much inexorably into perhaps too friendly a rivalry from that point onward.

It gets to being a bit nauseating how often it is referenced, but the purple rose storyline was genuinely sweet and meaningful for a long while. I think this was diluted more due to the author stretching the manga on too long; when that happens, an author usually loses a bit of the original dedication to creativity and meaningful dialogue, and it seems to be what is happening here.

Anyway this was not really a conventional review, sorry; I just wrote a bunch of stuff as I read it, and decided to quickly try to make it more coherent and see if anyone would like it. It is not the greatest manga ever, but even someone who pretty strictly enjoys shounen/seinen can enjoy this shoujo/josei, so I felt I should express something!

Glass mask is one of the best shoujo manga out there. Despite having a common enough shoujo setting, the plot hardly ever falls into any of the comon cliches that shoujo manga often times fall into. The artwork is in a classic 80s style, nothing outstanding, but the mangaka does not skimp on the minor details, and her understanding of common facial expressions is top notch.
Where Glass Mask really stands out is in the main characters and in the story. We are presented with a main character that is hard not to sympathize with and all the supporting characters and antagonists are really well fleshed out and have realistic and human personalities. The plot arc is interesting, each mini-arc has trials in the main characters confidence and abilities which she eventually solves to our amazment and the amazment of the audiences. The main arc slowly building until half way through where there is an impending crisis.
Glass mask's theme of working hard, having natural talent, and succeeding despite lacking beauty or grace make it one of my favorites and mark it as something that every shoujo fan should at least try.