Glass no Kamen

May 8, 2008

nosfertauman

Recommended

Preliminary (Unknown/? chp)

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 ...

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Mar 3, 2010

DdDCcC

Recommended

Preliminary (169/? chp)

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 ...

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Aug 31, 2022

kizumi91

Recommended

Funny

Preliminary (274/? chp)

Glass Mask is a legend Shoujo Manga that features a deep and emotional storyline. It's a world in which people who're enthusiastic about performing arts are incessantly striving to fulfill their own dreams. Behind those masks that the actors wear on stage are heart-touching stories regarding love and camaraderie, as well as the everlasting passion for acting of characters whose destiny is intertwined by the work "Crimson Goddess".

Have you ever wondered why stage and acting are so enchanting to artists? They're even willing to throw away their precious lives only for a brief moment to reverently live up to their characters in front of thousands ... of audiences. Since ancient times, people have always cast prejudices towards artists. Even in Western countries, people still consider them as some sort of entertainment tool at parties or items that can be transacted by money. In the Asian region, especially a country with a rich history spanning thousands of years like Japan, the artists also do not have a firm position in society. Despite that, through many ups and downs, even facing a harsh rule of elimination, they still devote themselves to their careers with all their passion.

Regarding creative thinking and the true value of acting, it’s impossible to discuss it all. However, through 49 volumes of Glass Mask, Suzue Miuchi has managed to skillfully portray a vividly lifelike picture of the world of artists, about their struggles and efforts, what happens behind the stage, and even the cost only to shine in the limelight. The moment the artists step on the stage, they are no longer their normal selves but rather assimilate themselves into the characters they're about to perform, having to wear an invisibly transparent “glass mask” to cover their identities. Still that same adorable face, but the person on stage isn’t that bashful and timid Maya girl but instead is a beautiful and noble character like Princess Aldis, or the Wild Wolf Jane, or even a quintessence of the millennial plum tree – “Crimson Goddess”.

The masks that they wore aren’t something fictitious like ordinary people use to assign the artists. Those are but the result of hard work that's truly valuable and worthy of respect, knowing the artists have put their heart and soul into their sublime performances in order to satisfy the audience. But alas, life is always full of insidious people who harbor hatred, envy and are willing to harm others for their own benefit. The life of an artist is no exception, sometimes the stage is actually the most ferocious battlefield. With extraordinary energy and effort, Maya has overcome everything to achieve her ultimate goal that she dreamed of, which is to live as a theater actress and play many different roles on stage. To Maya, comprehending a character isn’t limited to her only subjective emotions but an arduous process of striving to interpret and live rightfully to the character she will perform. When referring to young actors, people normally think of them as being impulsive, arrogant, aggressive, egotistical, and likewise. Yet Maya isn't one of them. She may be a different person on stage, can wear countless masks of all shapes and sizes when acting, but at the end of the day, she still is herself. She behaves nicely towards her friends and fairly competes with her biggest rival, Ayumi.

If you hate worn-out cliches and tropes in some Manga where the main characters are too perfect that makes them unrealistic and unrelatable, then your worry is unnecessary here. The two heroines of Glass Mask – Maya and Ayumi, are not stereotypical. Their feelings, their emotions, their thoughts, everything is very human. Regarding Maya, apart from her acting talent, she's completely inept in everything else. She can not even remember a simple mathematical formula. When she is angry or bears hatred on someone, she will react vehemently without giving in, and one of her victims is the Daito Art’s cold and heartless machine, Masumi. Maya hates him because he indirectly caused the death of her beloved mother and also tried to suppress her teacher Tsukikage as well as her small group.

Talking about Ayumi, who is called a genius, born to play the main role, her image is akin to a beautiful, gleeful, light-hearted, talented princess. She is confident in herself but never shows any sign of arrogance. She is well aware that she must grow mature and stand up on her own two feet as she cannot live under the influence of her family forever. When facing Maya, a redoubtable rival who is even more talented than her in terms of acting, it’s natural that she may develop jealousy and find ways to hurt Maya, but on the contrary, she has always been respecting Maya and regards Maya as her biggest opponent. There’s even one time when Ayumi retaliated upon the person who harmed Maya, causing Maya to leave the stage and be ostracized. She always sees Maya as a goal to fight for the right to perform as the main actress of the superb work “Crimson Goddess”, because only when competing with Maya is she able to truly feel “I can do it”. In Ayumi’s eyes, when ignoring the rivalry and other external circumstances, Maya's like her confidante as they both share the same passion for acting and stage.

Even Masumi, a workaholic who never pays any heed to anything besides his business, however, when standing in front of the innocent smile of a little girl 11 years younger than him, realized his heart has started beating unrhythmically from that moment. Masumi in reality, isn’t as cold-blooded as everyone has ever thought of him. It’s just his past is so painful and tragic that he wants everything to be rested, always aspires to become the most successful one, completely ignores everything, and doesn’t need the love from anyone. In spite of that, since the human heart inherently has pulsation, it can’t help vibrating, and little Maya is the flame that melted the thick layer of ice covering his heart. As an adopted child himself, he had to endure the unforgettable obsession about his poor mother. She's estranged because in his adoptive father's mind only had the image of “Crimson Goddess”. From Masumi's perspective, “Crimson Goddess” felt so distant but also very close. Seeing that beautiful portrait being burned to ashes in the fire gave him haunting memories. At first, his action of obtaining the exclusive right for Daito Art to legally perform the play “Crimson Goddess” only had a single goal of burying his tumultuous past, but later, the objective was also to see the image of a goddess in the girl that he fell head over heels in love with.

“Mr. Purple Roses”, “Daddy-Long-Legs”, those are aliases used by Maya to refer to the person who has always been supporting her since the early days. How ironic it is when that person is none other than Masumi, the one whom Maya hates the most. In a classic Shoujo, the borderline between love and hate is really vague and often hard to define. Still, it’s an endless topic that will never make readers get bored because it reflects the purest form of emotion dwelling deep inside each person’s heart. The dynamic between Masumi and Maya is as gorgeous as the stars in the sky when all resentments and hatreds seem to have vanished. On the opening day of the play “Forgotten Wilderness”, an unforeseen circumstance happened when a terrible typhoon directly hit the region, preventing people from coming to the theater. However, despite that adversity, Masumi still went out of his way to come in the middle of the typhoon only to keep his promise to Maya. On that night, there was only one person sitting in the auditorium. Stewart’s blue scarf that “Jane” used to dry off the water droplet remained on the face of the “Daito Art’s machine” appeared only once on the first night. And “Mr. Purple Roses” finally made his appearance, he’s always been there, been secretly supporting her for many years. It’s this event that set the stage of destiny for their love to bear fruit. Whatever will be, will be. Later, in the hometown of “Crimson Goddess”, after seeing Ms. Tsukikage’s sublime performance, Maya started pondering the love of the goddess. And just like that, as if guided by fate, Maya put on the robe that used to be worn by the goddess. At that moment, paranormal events occurred. Meeting Masumi on the other side of the river, she realized how fervent her love for him is. Their souls were likely to escape from their bodies and were about to join together and become one. Sadly, reality is harsh, that moment is but an illusion that only happened in their own minds, or perhaps their two also didn’t have belief in miracles in the first place.

“Glass Mask” not only presents the romance between young people and their passion for art but also shows the hardships that they have to go through since their path isn’t strewn with roses. Just as Yin and Yang are the two aspects of Taiji, our world also has bright side and dark side. While there’re people who choose the path of trampling on others to move up, there’re also people who choose to advance of their own will. Solidarity is strength, true friendship always shines as long as we have mutual trust. Success will definitely come when we work earnestly with the love for stage. That’s what the Tsukikage group and the Ikkakuju group did. Even though they're two different groups, they became friends and teamed up for a performance of the play “A Midsummer Night's Dream”, which attracted more than 6000 audiences. That was also the stepping stone to bring Maya back to the stage after being ostracized. The friendship between Ayumi and Maya can be compared to Princess and Cinderella, yet they still become good friends with each other. The kinship-like relationship between Maya, Rei, and their co-stars in the Tsukikage group is also significant to the progress of the story. Especially the teacher-student relationship between the former “Crimson Goddess” - Ms. Tsukikage and Maya, Ayumi, contributes to putting this Manga to its climax. Some people may consider Ms. Tsukikage being strict and stern because she was hasty to have a heiress as she didn’t want that play to be wasted. Some even said she’s too selfish. But “Spare the rod and spoil the child”, were Ms. Tsukikage really that selfish, she would always live in the past when she was acting as “Crimson Goddess” and would never relinquish it nor give it to anyone. Yet she didn't do it, as she acknowledged that “Crimson Goddess” doesn’t belong to her alone. It is the quintessence of stage and acting, a classic work that is worthy of being handed down to posterity. She wanted to revive the divine spirit hidden inside the plum tree through a different image, thus devoted herself to it. It may sound a bit exaggerated, but “Crimson Goddess” had already become her life.

There’re much more aspects in this Manga to discuss and analyze, but I’d like to stop my rant here. And also, I want to spend a few words to appreciate Miuchi-sensei for creating this work, knowing that she barely had any knowledge regarding stage and acting before writing this Manga. Between Maya and Ayumi, who will earn the right to perform “Crimson Goddess”? Will Maya and Masumi become lovers? The hiatus has been prolonging for 10 years, but I hope one day we can see the ending of this wonderful tale. With 50 million copies being sold, Glass Mask has become the second highest-selling Shoujo Manga ever made. Old but gold, despite how obsolescent it may appear to be and how unsung it is in modern-day industry/market, this Manga is undeniably one of the classic masterpiece with a magnificent character-driven narrative that hooked people who’re in love with stage and play in particular or merely a Shoujo Romance fan in general.

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Jan 15, 2010

Rampant

Recommended

Preliminary (168/? chp)

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!

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Mar 14, 2012

taigataiga

Recommended

Preliminary (Unknown/? chp)

[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.

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Jul 25, 2016

Mina-dere

Recommended

Preliminary (Unknown/? chp)

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 ...

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Apr 29, 2011

ebonyandlace

Recommended

Preliminary (Unknown/? chp)

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 ...

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