Paradise Kiss by Ai Yazawa
Kendra here! Iâve been making comics together with Kat for seven years. Weâre a Washington, D.C.(ish)-based comic team that draws everything from erotic space shenanigans to recipe books inspired by The Rock. You can find our ongoing webcomic Spacejinx and other NSFW comics at Misadventure Central, and you can buy our all-ages stuff at Go Team KK! Weâre taking turns to spotlight some comics we like for Our Comics, Ourselves this week.
IÂ discovered Paradise Kiss by Ai Yazawa while I was in high school, and it was a departure from my normal comic consumptionâit was my first foray into josei comics (aimed at women in their late teens and up), and my first comic with a romance that didnât come off as idealized or as a fantasy.Â
The story follows high school senior Yukari Hayasaka and her accidental befriending of a group of art school students. She ends up modeling for them, falls for the lead designer, and the five volumes follow her struggling with figuring out what she wants to do with her life, her relationship with her mom, and her relationship with her now-boyfriend, George.
But the way that Yazawa depicts Yukariâsheâs not really a likable protagonist, and George isnât the perfect boyfriend. Both of them are deeply flawed, and their relationship goes through a lot of instability throughout. By the end, they both end up separate as they try to find themselves and follow their real passions. This was one reason I really enjoyed the series when I initially read itâa love story that doesnât have a happy ending wasnât something I had seen much of in a lot of the mainstream media aimed at my demographic at the time. I also hadnât seen a lot of media that dealt with sex being awkward, or with female leads given so many internal issues, problems, and neuroses.
The art is distinctive; like many shoujo and josei manga, the charactersâ proportions are elongated, and the eyes are especially expressive. This ends up working out since the style is first and foremost about fashionâthe outfits and clothing change constantly from character to character, and all are rendered with a lot of love.
Paradise Kiss is not without its flaws, but the way Yukariâs life is captured in the comic is a great example of what the Josei genre is like, and how comics can tell stories outside of the general superhero path.
This week we are guest curating for Our Comics, Ourselves! Here is Kendraâs first post.
