Beauty Pop, Vol. 5, 5

Ochiai Kazuhiko decides it's finally time for SP to become a real club- enlisting Kiri and friends into the club (without Kiri's consent, of course)- and expanding the Scissors Project from just their school to the whole world- through the internet. Also we learn about the past history between Kiri's dad Seiji and Narumi's dad, meet Narumi's spoiled little sister- and the identity of the cute little girl who beat him at hairstyling is finally revealed to Narumi. Overall, an enjoyable volume. Beauty Pop continues to be a nice light read- never particularly shocking or hilarious, but the antics of the characters are endearing and the plot just plugs along. A comfort food of manga. If nothing else, the Kiri's stoic demeanor is a breath of fresh air. And we actually get to see a lot glimpses of her psyche this time around: her admiration of her dad and her loyalty to Aoyama as the love triangle between her, Aoyama and "Ochiai" intensifies. Art is good, even though I still find all the makeover subjects utterly interchangeable in looks. I've made peace with the fact that we'll never learn anything real about hairstyling, but with all the plot events, the commentary on beauty was somewhat lacking (though we see some of it through Narumi's spoiled behavior due to her good looks/ her narcissism). Sometimes the panels get overcrowded with too many people talking- and comedy bits that don't really make sense visually, but otherwise the main character designs are fluid, stylized and recognizable. Also important in this volume is the intensifying of the rivalry between Narumi and Kiri (at least in Narumi's mind). In probably the best part of this volume, Narumi starts to see Kiri in a more human light through a discovery of her poor artistic talents- but the ground is somewhat lost when he also finds out she's also his archrival and first crush. Though romance is still far off (and possibly not even possible), the seeds of friendship seem possible for these two- and I'm definitely hoping that they'll soon see how much they could stand to learn from each other about beauty and hairstyling (and possibly drawing... but maybe that's a lost cause).