Ichijo Yukari - Pride, vol. 01 (Chi. trans.)

[oyceter]

Asami Shio has it all: looks, money, talent. Midorikawa Moe doesn't. Neither of the two realize that they will be rivals in the quest to become Japan's greatest opera singer.

I keep wanting to read Ichijo Yukari's work because she's a fairly well-known mangaka, but I bounced off this hard. The volume I read reads like more old-fashioned shoujo with lots of glamour, tragedy, and overall drama. Unfortunately, with the glamour comes a ton of class issues. Shio's father ends up losing all their money, so we get her poor-little-rich-girl story, which I am actually guiltily fond of.

However, what's extremely annoying is the portrayal of Moe. She's introduced as a sweet girl, which fits right into the poor-but-hard-working-and-cheerful stereotype, but once she realizes she doesn't have half the advantages Shio does, she chooses to do whatever it takes to get to her goal. I feel this could have read as class commentary on how difficult it is to combat generations of privilege (Shio's mother was also a famous opera singer), but instead, the series paints Shio as cold and impractical but essentially trying her best in a cruel world, while Moe schemes, deliberately sabotages people, and may be driven to murderous impulses. Also, to hit all the stereotypes, Shio is drawn with light hair (blond on the cover), while Moe has dark hair.

Pass!

Comments

[pseudo_tsuga]

This sounds very similar to Glass Mask, which is a similar situation but it's about acting. the poor one isn't evil, though, and there's ton of female characters and relationships. The main sticking point that may bother you is that they set up the main character with a guy who's both eleven years older than her and a real creep at times.

[oyceter]

Oh, that's interesting! I mean, I've always heard of Glass Mask, but never knew what it was actually about.