The Skip Beat! manga retains much of what makes the anime so great. It’s still a silly, humorous tale about warped intentions and personal rebirth that, when needed, is not afraid to take on the deeper underlying issues. And it still has a stellar main character who has enough soft spots and hard edges to be engaging, and whose growth is central to and the driving force of the plot.

Because it’s much much longer though, the manga includes both positives and negatives that the anime does not. To start off, it’s able to explore the other characters more, giving the main people surrounding Kyouko a bit of life and dimension. It also paints a more all-encompassing picture of Kyouko’s character development, taking us further into the journey with her. The added length also allows the addition of more situations the characters can get involved in, which is a good thing if you want to see more of them, but a bad thing if you think it makes the plot meander a bit too much, especially since a few of these veer toward the more fanciful. In the manga, we also witness the blossoming romance between Kyouko and Ren, and again, depending on whom you ask, this can be considered a strength or a weakness. Personally, I consider it the former. It further showcases just how far Kyoko has come and builds on the theme of learning to love and be vulnerable again. I also like that it’s a slow burn, and we’re allowed to grow with the characters and their feelings. But I do understand why some people have a problem with it, as the romance does lean heavily on the usual tropes. It feels like an indulgence, but it’s an indulgence I welcome and enjoy. A problem that I do have though is with Ren’s character. Don’t get me wrong, I like him well enough, and he makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside, but I do wish they could have done something else with his supposed hidden history. It just feels like the manga is trying too hard to make him interesting at the expense of making the plot a little convoluted. I’m okay with him just being himself and not having a dark hidden persona to be afraid of. A character can be sexy without the affectation of danger attached. I also have an issue with some of the male-female interactions not being as progressive as I would like, but these don’t happen often enough to pose a great distraction. The last point of contention is the art style, which does admittedly look outdated, but I eventually got used to it, and it does get better as the manga progresses.

All in all, though Skip Beat! is not without its faults, none of them irritated me enough to stop adoring this manga. It’s definitely a sweet treat, and it’s my kind of sweet treat.