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Junji Ito's 'Fashion Model: Cursed Framing' serves as an addition to his previous 'Fashion Model' wherein a monstrous model haunts the protagonist as he tries to shoot a film. It is a short read, and it showcases Ito's great ideas that are often the main hook of his one-shots/manga.

The 8-page 'Cursed Framing' follows an up-and-coming model who has a fear of her body being fragmented in photos (those photos that do not show the full body). It is a very interesting representation of the fragility of one's own identity, and the fear that you cannot control other people's perceptions of you and your identity. The ... model's own agency is taken away by the magasine as they publish photos that have cropped out parts of her body. Her own identity has been reconstructed and sold off against her will, and she struggles with this due to her status as a new model who must conform to the magasine if she wishes to continue.

Despite its short runtime, it offers a frighteningly real portrayal of the deconstruction and commodification of the identity as she is literally 'consumed' by the industry that leeches off her. Two interesting interpretations occur to me, surrounding one's public identity - the construction of identity in order to 'fit in', to conform to society, and the construction of identity in order to sell a narrative (whether it be social media or acting); in both cases, public identity is something that we try to build up ourselves for various reasons, and it can often conflict with an identity which we might don in private.

Fuchi's (the original Fashion Model) inclusion here reflects both the jealousy and competition present in life/the industry, her literal 'shark teeth' consuming the model in this cutthroat food chain of the world of 'showbiz'. The final image of the model's corpse cut and framed within a square epitomises what I've been discussing, as her identity is eternally stolen from her and disfigured by another's own conflicting perceptions of that same identity.

'Hyottoshite Gal wa Orera ni Yasashii node wa?' is an anthology of a bunch of different mangaka's takes on Gyaru/Otaku relationships.

It deals with the common trope of gyaru as mean, annoying or scary, etc. (living in a different world from the otaku protagonist) and reverses it to (attempt to) show character development and reveal that *shocker* they are actually nice people (to not judge people based on appearances). This has also become a particularly common trope in more modern gyaru manga, which the anthology explores.

I am only really writing this review to highlight the 12th story 'Cheering Song' by Ishihara Yuu, and I would definitely ... recommend checking that out if you are at all interested in reading this anthology (Volume 2 is definitely the strongest of the three). It holds the best art, plot and characters by far, and some of the sentiments by the characters are written very well - the protagonist's unrequited relationship with his idol, and his satisfaction with that, creates a very interesting depth to his otaku, anti-social surface. It is really a breath of fresh air from most of the other otaku protagonists here who are so one-dimensional in their hostile introversion.

The problem with the anthology as a whole is that it is a mixed bag, which is to be expected with its nature as an antohology of one-shots from different mangaka. There are some really great one-shots here though (6, 11 and 12 specifically) which highlight the best of this theme exploration. By the 22nd story, however, the 'gyaru are nice' trope has really been bashed over the reader's head so much that it becomes incredibly repetitive.

Initial Thoughts (after the first 6 chapters that have been published):
- feels too early to say, but this is great!!

- feels heavily-inspired by Chainsaw Man (or more-widely Fujimoto - edit: he was his former assistant)!!

- great character designs and interesting threads so far!!

- another cool take on parodying the shonen genre!!

- give it a read and show some love to a new Jump series!!
...
TL;DR:
- cool mix of yakuza (like Tokyo Revengers or even 'delinquent' manga like Cromartie) and yokai/demons (like Chainsaw Man, Jujutsu Kaisen or Tokyo Ghoul)

- very promising new Jump title

- show some love as it can be hard for some titles to remain in publication in a competitive digital market!

[rating is not accurate - it forced me to give a rating; i do not wish to rate this one-shot as it is incomplete]

I will start off by saying that I think 'Cinderella Boy' is unfairly rated, since the only available scans online are terrible translations that (probably) do not contain the whole one-shot.

I have searched a fair bit for the original one-shot that was first published in the first issue of Kobunsha's 'Popcorn' in 1980, but to no avail unfortunately.

It is very sad for such an interesting concept to be destined to live on in the western world as a terrible comic sans scanlation ... with (probably) half of it missing.

It seems that Cinderella Boy will not be able to return from the ball after all