Yazawa Ai’s “Paradise Kiss: 20th Anniversary Edition” is delightful, entertaining and definitely recommended!
MANGA TITLE: Paradise Kiss: 20th Anniversary Edition
MANGA CREATED: 2000-2003
BY: Yazawa Ai
PUBLISHED IN USA BY: Vertical Comics
RELEASE DATE: December 3, 2019
Wildly-popular artist Ai Yazawa’s beloved fashion-centric manga, Paradise Kiss, is back in a glamorous omnibus edition to celebrate 20 years since the manga began serialization.
Follow Yukari’s through-the-looking-glass journey as she is drawn into the world of fashion by a group of passionate, young aestheties who are determined to make their couture label a success, with Yukari as their muse…
Award-winning mangaka, Yazawa Ai is well known for creating the popular manga series “Neighborhood Story” (1995-1997), “Paradise Kiss” (2000-2003) and “Nana” (2000-2009).
While much is not known about Yazawa Ai, aside from the fact that the last name comes from her appreciation of the singer, Yazawa Eikichi.
What may surprise people is that both popular series were being worked at the same time,”Paradise Kiss” was serialized for “Zipper” and “Nana” was serialized in “Cookie” Magazine. She also had another series titled “Princess Ai” which was serialized from 2004-2006 and its sequel in 2008 and 2010.
In fact, she did everything herself, with no assistants, just her and her Mac.
While Yazawa was able to complete “Paradise Kiss”, “Hana would be put on hiatus due to Yazawa’s illness and to this day, the manga series hasn’t been completed and many still wait to this day for the popular shojo manga artist to make her return.
With the 20th anniversary of her manga “Paradise Kiss”, Vertical Comics released “Paradise Kiss: 20th Anniversary Edition” which is an omnibus which collects all five volumes + a Bonus Stage chapter.
“Paradise Kiss” can be seen as a spinoff series to Yazawa’s “Neighborhood Story”, as a few characters featured in that manga series are featured in “Paradise Kiss” but the series primarily focuses on protagonist Hayasaka Yukari a.k.a. “Caroline”.
As Yukari is leaving to school, she is approached by a man and woman, not knowing why these strangers are interested in her and thinking they may be rapists, when the woman holds on to her, Yukari faints.
When she awakens, she is greeted by the bubbly Sakurada Miwako, the punk-style Nagase Arashi and the fashionista and mother figure of ParaKiss, Yamamoto Isabella.
They explain that they are seniors at Yazawa Art School (the group is known as ParaKiss)and are looking for a model for their school festival.
Yukari talks down to them and has no interest in hanging out with them or being a model and storms out but accidentally drops her school ID.
One of the Yazawa Art School students, Koizumi Joji a.k.a. George sees the ID and takes an interest in her based on her look, meanwhile Yukari is worried because people who found it, may find out that she has a crush on her classmate Hiroyuki.
and decides to go to Yukari’s school to tell her she left her ID at the atelier and if she wants it back, she has to go there. And to her surprise, George drives her in his convertible to the atelier where she is welcomed by the students and instantly is given a makeover and has a new hairstyle and has makeup applied by their makeup artist.
As Yukari just wants her ID, George refuses to give it to her until she tries out a dress. When she puts it on, everyone is enamored of how beautiful she looks and George asks her to please model for them.
Yukari and George seem to meet up in different locations and she tells George that she is studying to get into a good college and she’s getting frustrated by the pressure put on her by her parents and wants to do what she wants.
But because George takes his time to listen to her and wants to hang out with her, Yukari agrees to model with them and while she hangs out with them, she can’t help but think about George, despite how cold and manipulative he may be. Is she falling love?
But through this process with being with George and her new friends, she discovers more about herself, her friends and grow as a woman who wants to take charge of her life and make her own decisions.
Overall, “Paradise Kiss” is a fascinating manga. Yazawa has a unique ability to showcase relationships, friendships as realistic. People have their own personal dilemmas, people have their own thought process and motivations and we see how characters are affected throughout each chapter.
Especially to see how Yukari changes from this frustrated teenager and often critical to her surroundings but then when she meets George and the others of ParaKiss, we see how they make a difference in her life and eventually feeling that modeling may be what she wants to do.
It’s actually a complex and entertaining manga and you can see how Yazawa’s interest in fashion plays a big part in this manga. Yazawa who actually attended a clothing school and fashion being a major part of her hobby, has said that she would be a stylist if she didn’t become a manga artist.
But it’s a unique manga series and the fact that it’s also not a long running manga series, “Paradise Kiss: 20th Anniversary Edition” makes it worth the purchase alone for those who love shojo manga, an interest in the fashion industry and romance stories, but also for those who want something different from what is available out there manga-wise in the US with a realistic storyline.
And the fact that you get the entire manga in one omnibus for a great price is fantastic!
Yazawa Ai’s “Paradise Kiss: 20th Anniversary Edition” is delightful, entertaining and definitely recommended!