Yukari’s thoughts become dominated by thoughts of George, but she also wonders if he’s just playing with her. He starts out playing with her, to get her to come back to the studio and convince her to be their model, but she gets completely caught up in him and his games. The members of Parakiss are used to him and can just go with it, but Yukari becomes intrigued with George. He always has a straight face, making it difficult to tell what he’s thinking, or when he’s being serious. And then there’s George, the leader of Parakiss.

Isabelle is a tall, male transvestite who also likes to cook, and takes any opportunity to make rice balls. Miwako looks and acts like a little girl, often referring to herself in the third person. Arashi looks and speaks like a British punker, complete with safety-pin piercings and slang. Until she meets the members of Paradise Kiss.Īs one would expect for a group of art-school students, Paradise Kiss is filled with some eccentric characters. Her whole world revolves around this single goal. She doesn’t have any dreams or ambitions beyond getting into college. In Yukari’s world, your rank in school equals your rank in life. She walks around with her nose in a book, goes to prep-school, and just generally worries about doing well and getting into a good school, just like everyone else around her. Yukari Hayasaka is a high school student preparing for exams for college. Paradise Kiss is about a group of fashion design students trying to make their own line with normal exam student Yukari as their model, but this first volume is more about the relationships of this group of new friends than fashion, and as is typical of a Yazawa manga, the relationships are anything but simple. This was before I knew how awesome Ai Yazawa and her work was. When Paradise Kiss first came out, I passed on it, thinking it wouldn’t be a series I would be interested in, and quite frankly, I was turned off by the cover art. In a glamorous makeover of body, mind and soul, she is turned from a hapless bookworm into her friends’ own exclusive clothing model. One afternoon, however, she is kidnapped by a group of self-proclaimed fashion mavens calling themselves “Paradise Kiss.” Yukari suddenly finds herself in the roller coaster life of the fashion world, guided by George, art-snob extraordinaire. Yukari wants nothing more than to make her parents happy by studying hard and getting into a good college.

Paradise kiss vol 1