Wednesday, August 5, 2020

Act-Age, Vol. 1: Tatsuya Matsuki

Title: Act-Age Vol. 1
Author: Tatsuya Matsuki
Art: Shiro Usazaki
Genre: Manga; Graphic Novel; Young Adult
 Published: July 7th, 2020
Publisher: VIZ Media LLC


Kei Yonagi must delve deep into her psyche to succeed in the cutthroat world of acting, but can she keep her sanity while doing so?

Is there a method to Kei Yonagi’s madness when it comes to acting? The young actor has a family of siblings to feed, but she finds herself struggling with her psychological demons when playing a role. Her desperate acting catches the eye of a famous director, Sumiji Kuroyama, who’s looking for raw talent to mold. Can he help Yonagi navigate the cutthroat world of acting without losing her sanity?

*A Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me to read this in exchange for a honest and unbiased review*

Rating

Hello Fellow Readers,

As much as I wanted to like this manga I just couldn't get into it. The plot is a little weird and the characters are even weirder. Most of the time this wouldn't bother me as manga characters typically get that way sometimes but this time they just didn't mesh with me. I did feel for the main character in the beginning.

Kei's dad is gone, her mother is dead and she is responsible for two young kids. It makes sense that she wants to loose herself in movies, but at the same time she can't fully remove herself because her acting needs to be able to relate to the experiences she has in life. It's not really acting (although they are mostly talking about method acting in this and I am not a actor so who knows?) to me, it's just her rating her scenes to her life. 

I lost my connection with Kei after her 'second' role and I just couldn't get the connection back. I like connecting to characters even if it's not on a personal level. Yes, I understand she is weird, it's mentioned a lot in the manga, but when she wanted to return a check for a commercial because she didn't do exactly what it said in the script, I just found it ridiculous. 

The manga isn't bad at all, I can see it being very funny, especially with all the hi-jinks Kei gets into but I just don't think this is for me. 

 

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