Tenshi no Kiss Vol.1

Synopsis:

Alternative titles: Forbidden Dance, Angel’s Kiss.

The first 2 pages is about Aya in a ballet competition and she had an accident on stage when she suddenly woke up. Actually, she was just dreaming about the accident one month ago and it has been a recurring nightmare for her. As her leg was healed, she now continue her ballet lessons. Her sensei insisted on giving her the lead part, Aurora, in the upcoming performance Sleeping Beauty, even though the part had been given to Yoshino, the dancer who had won the competition instead of Aya. However, the accident left Aya with a bad case of stage fright. The psychological trauma cause her to fall again during the performance. In the end, she decided to quit ballet as she couldn’t dance anymore.

One day in the park, she was caught crying by a guy named Tetsuya. It turns out that they were schoolmates and he invited her to a ballet recital. This was how she got to know Cool, an all-male ballet troupe, led by an incredible dancer, Akira. Aya was so enraptured by their performance that she went to beg Akira to allow her to join their troupe. Surprisingly, he agreed but with one condition: Aya had to compete and win in the upcoming National Ballet Competition!

However, Akira wasn’t really serious about it and this really pisses Aya out. She was determined to prove her worth no matter what, and she continued her preparation for the competition while spending every bit of her free time watching Cool’s members practices. Seems like she had a plan hidden up her sleeve. In their next performance, she actually poisoned one of the members, and took over his role! All of this showed Akira her determination.

The National Ballet Competition has finally arrived. During the preliminaries, it was quite clear that the competition was between Aya & Yoshino, whom the latter decides to quit the ballet school if she loses. During the prelim, someone sabotaged Aya by putting glasses in her shoes. She suspected it was Yoshino & slapped her. Aya was so pushed to win that she purposely show the judges her superiority in technical skills, but in the process, lost what is most important in ballet – the feel and emotions. One of the judges, Mr. Jones actually walk off in the middle of her performance and gave her 0 points. Aya barely pass the prelims.Mr. Jones is actually a teacher at the Regents Ballet School in England and used to teach Diana Roberts, a world-renowned dancer. After watching some of her performances on video, Aya realizes her mistake and started practicing again.

On the day of the final, Nacchan (Aya’s best friend in the ballet school) went missing. Seems that she's upset that she was eliminated in the prelims. Aya went looking for her, and found her in the ballet school. Nacchan admitted that it was her who put the glasses in Aya’s shoes, not Yoshino. She has been jealous of Aya for a long time. Now she threatened to commit suicide if Aya leaves the room, thereby preventing Aya from making it to the competition.

Review:

This is the first time I’ve read a manga regarding dancing, ballet in this particular one. Naturally, I have high expectations with it. As the manga is only 4 volumes long (with the 4th volume only a chapter – the other chapters are oneshots), it is jam packed, and the storyline fast-paced. The characters are introduced quickly to us, but it is good that there are not too many side characters to bother us. The plot is interesting with a couple of twist here and there to keep up the tension.

As this manga is about dancing, I expect the artwork to be beautifully lined, especially the dancing scenes. The mangaka, Ashihara Hinako-san, did not disappoint. The dancing scenes, especially the ones with Cool, was incredible and full of lovely forms. The only complain is that there are not enough of these scenes, and each performances, or scenes are incredibly short. In fact, they couldn’t tell much story, other than that it’s just good dancing. There wasn’t much technical explanation regarding the dances as well.

Other than these scenes, the artwork of the rest of the manga is quite pretty and sleek, but normal. Although, I must say that Hinako-san took advantage with background features. Most of the time, she only emphasized on the characters, whereas the background are always simply drawn or otherwise empty. The body & facial proportions of the characters are also not always perfect (as in naturally correct) . Of course such emphasis are not necessarily bad and this is a manga after all, where the extremes are to be expected.

Over all, I strongly recommend this manga to all shoujo manga fans. It is quite interesting to read something with a different plot setting, instead of the usual high-school girl-boy relationship.

Labels: tenshi no kiss

Posted at 10:22 PM